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From: ceb@csli.stanford.edu (Charles Buckley)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Pac*Bell Delivers (Well, Almost)
Message-ID: <15496@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 90 04:41:24 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 889, Message 2 of 10


John Higdon wrote:

>Remember back around August of 1989 when Pac*Bell hustled its new
>"regulatory" package through the CPUC?

<remainder of well-aimed Higdon electronic bomb to Pac Bell deleted>

In another bit of PacBell stupidity, I recently tried to get
distinctive ringing on my single line (no, it's too much trouble to
get two) so people could send me faxes.

Found the detector box and all that, and I call up PacBell, where I am
told that I can't get distinctive ringing unless I get a service
package called ComStar Plus (or something like that), which required,
in addition to buying speed dial and other things I don't want, that I
get two lines (not two numbers, but two lines!).

Is this Catch-22 idiocy nationwide, or is it only PacBell that has
this problem?


[Moderator's Note: ComStar, also known as Intellidial in some areas and
Starline in others is tariffed as a service for 2 or more actual lines
in a group. Many or most of the features in ComStar would not work
with just one line. In fact having only two lines makes ComStar a
little bit of an overkill. It may be that PacBell only has Distinctive
Ringing available through ComStar at present. I know Illinois Bell
could not offer Distinctive Ringing until recently when they upgraded
their software. They did offer it in Centrex and Starline service, but
not on single residential lines until ahout two months ago.   PAT]