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From: igloo.Scum.com!dattier@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (David Tamkin)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: COCOT in GTE Land
Message-ID: <15739@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 1 Jan 91 01:00:56 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 2, Message 7 of 11


Stan Krieger wrote in volume 10 (yeah, back then), issue 908:

| While trying to place a call from a COCOT in Fort Myers, FL last week,
| after getting an "invalid number" synthesized message as I started
| pushing 10288, I pushed "0".  It took about 8 rings for the GTE
| operator to answer.

| So I wonder what exactly the interface between the COCOT and phone
| company is.  For example, in Bell Operating Company areas, the
| operators know that the line is a COCOT.

What amazes me is that you got a telco operator by dialing 0 at a
COCOT.  It amazes me that you could reach a telco operator by dialing
*anything* from a COCOT.  Stan seems not only to have reached a GTE
operator from the COCOT in GTE's satrapy but also to have reached
local BOC operators from COCOTs in Bell jurisdictions.


David Tamkin  Box 7002  Des Plaines IL  60018-7002  708 518 6769  312 693 0591
MCI Mail: 426-1818  GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN  CIS: 73720,1570  dattier@igloo.scum.com


[Moderator's Note: The COCOTS in this area (I'm east of David T. by
about five miles) get the IBT operator from dialing zero. But there is
a class of service or treatment on the line which tells the operator
you are at a private pay phone and you need to make arrangements for
billing other than 'bill to this number', which the operator will
refuse to do. IBT is very sophisticated about this sort of thing. They
have numerous classes of service restricting incoming/outgoing calls;
the type of billing permitted on the line, etc. COCOTS pose no hassle
for them in this respect.  PAT]