Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Wed, 29 May 91 18:19 PDT From: John Higdon Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Cellular One Dialing Procedures Reply-To: John Higdon Message-ID: Organization: Green Hills and Cows 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 412, Message 5 of 14 Lines: 58 "Ole J. Jacobsen" writes: > 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. When I read your post, I reached over to my GTE Mobilnet-served handheld and dialed '408 723-1395'. It worked just fine from my 408 mobile number. > 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!" Since Pacific Telesis is a major owner of Cellular One, this could be somewhat truthful. Interestingly enough, however, GTE seems to have no problem providing the dialing scheme you describe, even though its calls are "routed through Pac*Bell" just like Cellular One's. > "We do not have any plans to market the dialling procedure you > requested at this time." So it is a matter of marketing? Is everything "marketing driven" these days? Does it have to be salable to exist? > "All of our switches are programmed from Toronto, thus you can't > talk to the guy in charge of switch programming." That's a good one. I guess if the programmers are actually in Toronto, there are no telephone circuits there so it would be impossible to talk to them. On the other hand, GTE's switches are programmed from Houston and I have talked to programmers for that company. > 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? Obviously, since GTE seems to have no trouble. Your post has served as a great example as to why I left Cellular One for GTE Mobilnet. GTE hides its Houston base very well and comes off as a local operation that is actually interested and concerned about customer satisfaction with every aspect of the service. When I have had concerns and questions, not only did I speak to people who gave me concise and correct information, but in many cases there were follow up calls and local numbers were given to me in case I had additional comments or questions. Frankly, I think it might be worth your while to switch. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !