Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik Naggum) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Forwarded Calls and CallerID Message-ID: <15225@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 4 Dec 90 23:39:16 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 59 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 866, Message 1 of 9 John Higdon writes: > When I receive a wrong number, I always assume error on the part of > the caller, not in the switching network. To quote a well-known radio > doctor, "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." Well, I can relate a weird story. A girlfriend of mine, Deb, lives on Long Island, NY, local number 798-xyxx. In May this year, something happened which I have not been able to find a good explanation for, and it annoyed one poor man a lot. Well, I call Deb, get some person whose voice I don't recognize, ask for Deb, and get a very polite "I'm sorry, there is no Deb, here. You must have dialled the wrong number." Sorry to bother the man, I apologize and hang up. Then I very carefully dial the same number, again. Same result. He is a little less polite this time, but I explain that I was careful this time, and that I'm as annoyed as he is. I try a third time. Same result. I apologize profusely and he understands that I'm not trying to bug him. This is clearly a case for Operator Assistance, expensive as it is in this country. She, of course, doesn't have any problems at all. Being called by the operator from Norway, specifically asking for her, made her parents very nervous (they have family here). Not being home the situation wasn't resolved. Next day, I call again, this time from my office. Same result. Dave, as I learn the poor man's name is, is willing to call Deb's number to see if something is wrong there. Three-way calling is nice. No problems. I give up that day. The third day, I try calling from a payphone, only to annoy Dave even more, but this time he tells me what his phone number is, provided that I don't call again. I say that's OK, and I'll go hunt for the problem. His number is 798-qrqq. There's a pattern to this. I call maintenance, and raise a veritable hell, having wasted more than $15 on failed calls, which I know are not my fault. I imagine that in the U.S. it would be relatively easy to get this refunded; not so in Norway. Two days later, a service engineer calls me to confirm that the problem has gone away, and asks me if I had called the wrong number many times. They had apparently had to call Dave both direct and indirect to trace the call, several times, and he was extremely pissed, according to the service rep. The problem was local to parts of Oslo, and the operator I called was not in Oslo. What exactly the problem was, I never learned. Subscribers don't know anything about internal things in the phone system by definition, and no exceptions to this rule are allowed to exist. The service rep didn't want to even try to tell me what was going on. Sigh. When things worked again, it took some effort to clear the problems caused by the operator calling, as well. I don't know what the problem was, but it wasn't the caller (me), it wasn't some fancy run-away special function invoked at the callee side, and it wasn't anything the telco people would admit to be their fault. I don't see what it could be if not some switching network problem. [Erik Naggum] Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway