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From: CRW@icf.hrb.com (Craig R. Watkins)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Home Data Line (was: Data Interruption by Operator)
Message-ID: <16688@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 91 13:50:26 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 93, Message 5 of 10


In article <16659@accuvax.nwu.edu>, gtisqr!toddi@yang.cpac.
washington.edu (Todd Inch) writes:

> That's what I have.  GTE (north of Seattle, WA, near Everett) didn't
> charge extra to make the first line hunt to the second line when the
> first is busy, which surprised me a bit.  Monthly and LD charges for
> both lines are intermixed on a single bill.

Same thing here in Bell of PA land.

> I had originally asked for a "circular hunt" where calls coming into
> the second line would also hunt the first, but they won't give it to
> me.

[...]

> After not giving me what I'd asked for and then playing around for a
> few days, GTE finally said that a circular hunt wasn't tarriffed, so
> they couldn't do it.  They admitted that their equipment could do it,
> and even said they had it programmed that way for about a half day,
> then realized there was no tarriff for it and changed it back.  Can
> anyone give evidence that this IS tarriffed?  (Tad?)

Here's how it works here according to Bell of PA when I checked a few
years ago: Circular hunting is tarriffed as a business service.  So if
I wanted circular, I would have had to switch my service to business
and pay a fairly high monthly rate for it (I think it was around
$8/month -- I forget if that was per line for sure, but I think it
was).

I found this out right after moving across town into a new place.  In
the old place I had (free) circular hunting with the folks next door
(different address, different bill).  (In case one wonders what use
that would be, we had both lines running into a shared PBX.)  The
folks at Bell that moved my service for me had no idea how I got that
installed originally (I just asked, I think).

It seems like the old business/residence thing.  Many residential reps
don't even know what circular hunting is.

> We used to answer line two (when line one isn't busy) "I'm sorry, you
> have the wrong number."  But that just confused them and they wanted
> to know how we knew.  

I have some "extra" lines on my electronic set at work (software
defined numbers -- no actual addition hardware involved).  When they
ring, I know it's a wrong number.  I've actually been suprised at the
number of people that accept "Sorry, wrong number" that I actually now
use that most of the time.  It lets the people know they dialed wrong
and it lets me get off the phone fairly quickly.

> Now I just answer "We're sorry, the number you
> have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service . . ." :-)
> Their response is now usually just a click as they hang up after the
> first few words of my intercept impression.

I like that.  Good idea.


Craig R. Watkins	Internet:	CRW@ICF.HRB.COM
HRB Systems, Inc.    	Bitnet:		CRW%HRB@PSUECL.Bitnet
+1 814 238-4311		UUCP:		...!psuvax1!hrbicf!crw