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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccieng5!ccieng2!kfk
From: kfk@ccieng2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Telecommunications and the Phone Company
Message-ID: <211@ccieng5.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Dec-83 16:45:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ccieng5.211
Posted: Fri Dec 23 16:45:11 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Dec-83 01:25:31 EST
Lines: 48

Coming back from my self-imposed exile a bit early...

This little story about modems and unreliable phone lines struck a
chord dear to my heart.  I have this nervousness about owning my own
phone, which is why I still rent/lease/whatever-they-call-it mine.

My father used to be a dept. chief at WE's Columbus Works, and he was
always a bit nervous about the idea of Joe Consumer ever becoming
responsible for the phones in his home.  He theorized that if AT&T ever
gave that responsibility (i.e., to keep the *&#$%+` thing working) over
to the consumer, they would put Joe in a rather terrible position.  Sce-
nario: Joe's phone seems to have stopped working, & he suspects the line.
He calls local phone company and says, "It's stopped working."  Well, now,
Local Phone Company Repair Representative asks a few semi-pertinent
questions, and then comes to the big one: "Is this an AT&T phone, or do
you own it yourself?"  Joe responds truthfully (much to his shortly-to-
be-realized regret), "I own it."  Local Phone Company Repair Representa-
tive heaves a great sigh of despair, and announces, "I'm sorry, but we
<note the editorial "we"> feel that it's YOUR PHONE which is causing the
problem, and the line is OK.  Have YOUR PHONE repaired."  Offhand, you
have to admit that it's in the local phone company's best interest to say
this; after all, it would cost them some bucks to go out and check your
line, and it costs them next to nothing to have the LPCRR tell you where
to get off.

Now, Joe hasn't got ye olde snowball's chance.  If the line is in fact
at fault, and which I understand is more likely (Western Electric's
phones are historically fantastically reliable), Joe is STILL going to
have to invest <$> to have some tech tell him what he already thought
was the case: that his phone is fine.  Only then can he call the local
phone company, talk to another Local Phone Company Repair Representative,
who will ask the same semi-pertinent questions, ending with "Do you own
it?"  Of course, this time Joe can say, "I own it, BUT I just had it in
the shop, and they say it's fine."  Now the local phone company will
probably send someone out to check the line, but Joe's phone service has
been interrupted for some as-yet-undefined period of time.

My father was always very much afraid of this scenario.  It wasn't until
some time after he retired that the anti-trust settlement with AT&T's
breakup was announced.  He then became even more fearful of the problems,
because now you have a relatively small local company instead of the mammoth
resources of AT&T to arrange to get your phone working again.  I really
don't know if this would be the case, but I can see his point.  It will
be very interesting to see what happens to customer service calls after
the first of the year.

Karl Kleinpaste
...![ [seismo, allegra]!rochester!ritcv, rlgvax]!ccieng5!ccieng2[!:]kfk