Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Tue, 28 May 91 18:27:30 PDT From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Cellular One Dialing Procedures Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 407, Message 5 of 8 Lines: 56 Folks, I am trying to convince Cellular One here in the Bay Area that they need to start accepting "canonical numbers" from cellular phones in order to be in compliance with generally accepted industry standards. (I've heard that there is even an IEA recommendation for this.) If you can help me put forward my case I'd be grateful. By "canonical numbers" I mean 10 digit numbers of the form: (Area Code) prefix-number, e.g., (415) 962-2599. Dialling such a number should *always* work, even if you are in your "home" area code, i.e. in 415 in this case. When I first got my phone about three years ago, everything worked just fine, canonical numbers could be stored in memory and "dialled" (sent to the MTSO by means of the S(p)END button), regardless of whether the call was for within 415 or not. When Pac*Bell introduced 1+ dialling for long distance calls, Cellular One decided in their infinite wisdom to follow suit, and changed the dialling procedure accordingly. So, now you have to dial 1 202 555-1212 or whatever. They forgot (or so it seems) to enforce it for "local" calls, so until recently you could still call a 415 number using canonical style dialing: 415-xxx-yyyy. Then recently, they discovered this "hole" and now you can *only* dial "local" calls using seven digits: xxx-yyyy. While I can sort of understand their idea that "it should work just like a regular phone" the trouble is that you cannot store numbers in memory any more and use the phone while travelling. I am trying to get them to accept canonical dialling *AS WELL AS* their current silly scheme, but so far I have not had much luck finding anyone who even understands what I am talking about. Some of the answers I have received so far include: "All our calls are routed through Pac*Bell, so we have to follow Pac*Bell's dialling procedures!" "We do not have any plans to market the dialling procedure you requested at this time." "All of our switches are programmed from Toronto, thus you can't talk to the guy in charge of switch programming." Since cellular systems employ pre-origination dialling, i.e., the entire number is sent to the switch before any connection is made, then it is clearly a small matter of programming to make this work correctly, or is it not? Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop, Inc., 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, Phone: (415) 941-3399 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@csli.stanford.edu Direct: (415) 962-2515