Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: Edward_Greenberg@cso.3mail.3com.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Phone Frustration
Message-ID: <2426@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 26 Dec 89 21:20:00 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 596, message 2 of 5


     "... a dark stormy night, a desperate woman, a telephone from 
     Kafka".  Using a pay phone at a service station along the highway, 
     she dialed 0 then the number and the phone went dead. She tried 
     again and again. She finally reached an operator and found out that 
     (a) the phone was owned by a private company (not AT&T), (b) 
     collect calls could not be made, and (c) she could not be connected 
     with an AT&T operator.

I've run into several COCOTs that have an annoying habit.  They're all
owned by "Tele-America."  Their COCOTs want $.85 to call my number,
although they'll call other numbers in my building (with other CO
prefixes) for the traditional $.20. Calls to their repair service (211
of all things) yield nothing but a ringing phone.  Calls to the listed
800 number for Tele-America yield the same.

Today I called the Public Utilities Commission.  I told them the story
and they say that "they'll get their attention."

I say, "May maledictions pursue Tele-America and all their ilk to the
lowermost depths of world slime."
                                    -edg

Ed Greenberg
edg@cso.3mail.3com.com