Path: utzoo!telecom-request
Date: Mon, 06 May 91 18:33:17 GMT
From: Mitch Wagner <wagner@utoday.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: RJ-11 Jacks in Hotel Rooms
Message-ID: <telecom11.339.8@eecs.nwu.edu>
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In article <telecom11.325.6@eecs.nwu.edu> kddlab!lkbreth.foretune.co.
jp!trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J Woodhead) writes:

> Any dedicated travelling
> modemer carries a small screwdriver for impromptu ECO'ing of hotel
> phones.  In a pinch, you can use a paperclip or the tang on the end of
> a Bic pen to worm the jack out.

Is that what you call the end of a pen? A "tang"? No kidding! :-)

Seriously, I find the end of the pen or paperclip works best. Why
burden one's self down with unnecessary supplies when one can as
easily forage off the land? (So to speak.)

> get into the room.

> Inveterate Motel-6 Modemer's can be recognised by dialing scripts in
> their terminal programs that look like this:

> 		ATDT 6,1XXXYYYZZZZ,,,,,,,AAABBBCCCCDDDD

> This gets the outside line, dials the long distance number, waits long
> enough to get the bong (varies between five and seven seconds
> depending on the Motel 6), and dials a credit card number.  I wish all
> Hotel telephone systems were as simple and straightforward (and fair!)
> as the big 6's are... ;^)

And inveterate business travellers can be sometimes be spotted by
checking their comm dialing directories. I'm a GEnie addict, and a
private detective would find my ProComm dialing directory containing
numbers for GEnie nodes in Long Island, the San Francisco Bay Area and
Cambridge, Mass.

Why wouldn't something like the Motel 6 dialing scheme work on another
hotel?

I've never actually tried to charge a modem call, but it seems that
you could just program the following string in:

ATDT 9,1(XXX)YYY-ZZZZ,,,,,,,,,,AAAABBBBCCCCDDDD

With ABCD being the credit card number... and ,,,,, being the pause
for the bong.

That should work fine. Just about every hotel I've ever stayed in had
you dial "9" for outside, collect, 800 and credit card calls, and "8"
for long distance calls. 

Oh, well. I'm due to travel next first week in June. I shall perform
the appropriate experiments and report back.


Mitch Wagner      VOICE: 516/562-5758
GEnie: MITCH.WAGNER   UUCP: wagner@utoday.com