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From: patrick@cs.cornell.edu (Pat Stephenson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Telephonic Paranoia
Message-ID: <14840@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 19 Nov 90 05:30:12 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 835, Message 7 of 15


Charles Bryant writes:

(Story of paranoid politicians deleted)

>The excitement died quickly when Bord Telecom was contacted. They told
>the two concerned lefties, who were now on the point of organising
>resistance, that they had received hundreds of such worried calls from
>paranoid householders. Nothing sinister was afoot. A weird technical
>fault meant that most incoming calls from overseas were creating this
>response on Irish phones.  "But surely the Special Branch..." the
>lefties ventured. Not at all, said Telecom.

I can vouch for this.  I made several attempts to dial directly to
Dublin on Sunday 12th and Monday 13th November.  I got complete
silence at the other end - no intercept, no busy.  Eventually I placed
a call through the operator, which did go through (with LOUSY quality,
but at this point I wasn't being picky...).  The people at the other
end reported exactly the behaviour mentioned above.


Pat Stephenson