Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 9 Jun 91 03:39:04 GMT From: Jim Gottlieb Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Pet Peeve About Newer Modems (was Telephone Keypads) Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Message-ID: Organization: Info Connections, West Los Angeles 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 438, Message 2 of 9 Lines: 28 In article 76012.300@compuserve.com (76012,300 Brad Hicks) writes: >> Also, I have heard of, but never heard officially, of a telco >> tariff which requires that autodialers not retry the same number >> more than ten times in a row automatically. > it's a law. It was passed by Congress in the aftermath of that > guy who got hacked off at one of the televangelists ... First off, I believe the limit is 16 retries. And I'm pretty sure the law was passed because of what happened when Bruce Springsteen tickets went on sale in D.C. and the network came to a standstill due to the number of people trying to call the ticket vendor. The real solution would have been to put such numbers on a high-volume prefix, or as they do here in L.A., the number to Ticketron is a special case in all local switches and tandems. But it being D.C., our lawmakers thought they had to pass a law. Never mind that I doubt that autodialers were a significant portion of the traffic that day. Most autodialers try only once every thirty or sixty seconds. More probable were people doing multiple manual repeat dials. If I press the Last-Number-Dialed button 17 times, do I go to jail :-) ?