Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 12:08:57 PDT From: "John R. Covert 05-Jun-1991 1446" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 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 427, Message 5 of 9 Lines: 56 > Now the curious question is why Cellular One's switches would be > programmed here. The only switch maker I know in Toronto is Northern > Telecom. Or is it perhaps that Cellular One is owned by a Toronto > based company ? Cantel (the nation-wide "A" carrier) is into all > sorts of other technical ventures. Perhaps they're the culprit. Your guess that Cantel is somehow involved may be right on the mark. As was reported elsewhere, Bay Area Cellular has recently converted to an Ericsson (correctly spelled with the double "s") switch. Cantel is the largest single user of Ericsson switches, and may be providing the programming -- or Ericsson may have an office in Toronto where the programming is done. It seems to be the case throughout Cantel that local calls must be dialled without a "1", and I wonder why Cantel subscribers don't complain about the same problem of not being able to use repertory dialling when travelling. Someone asked about new features that Ericsson switches may provide: Cantel customers are able to be reached regardless of where they are, coast to coast in Canada, as well as in locations in the U.S. that are Ericsson switches directly linked to Cantel, without doing anything at all to indicate that they are in a new system. In addition, all their custom calling features, including three-way calling, call-forwarding, and call-waiting, continue to work wherever they go. The locations currently linked to Cantel are: Pittsburgh, Johnstown and Erie, Pa., Wheeling, W. Va., Albany, Rochester, and Buffalo, N.Y., Detroit, Ann Arbor, Flint, Grand Rapids, Muskegon, and Saginaw, Mich., Toledo and Lima, Ohio, Jacksonville, Daytona, Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Miami, Fla. All the "A" systems in Washington and Oregon are in the process of being linked; they work at the moment if your Cantel number is a British Columbia number, and will work for all Cantel numbers within a few months. Presumably other Ericsson systems will be linked to Cantel (and to each other) as time goes on. Next time I travel in these areas, I'll have the option (and the need to decide) to use either my NYNEX number and Follow-Me-Roaming or my Cantel number and Call-Following. Of course, IS-41 is supposed to make all this possible so that all systems everywhere get interconnected, but the Judge Greene problem still exists for any cellular companies owned by Baby Bells -- and this includes those Cellular Ones owned by Southwestern Bell, or by PacTel, or by U.S. West. Cellular One in San Francisco (Bay Area Cellular) is a partnership of PacTel, McCaw, and one other minority owner. john