Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: David Tamkin Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: One-armed Bandits Message-ID: <2651@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 6 Jan 90 10:06:26 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 35 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 10, message 9 of 13 During the course of 1989 two COCOT-related events occurred within a quarter mile of my home: 1. A COCOT-owning pharmacy closed when its owner decided to retire. The COCOT was torn out and Central Telephone installed an additional real public telco coin phone next to the existing one outdoors. Several months later Centel put a third real public telco coin phone in next to the first two. (In addition, there has been another telco coin phone all along inside a tavern in the same shopping strip.) 2. Down the street a gasoline station owner had the two Illinois Bell true public payphones taken out. I saw someone working with wiring at the hole in the ground where they had been: his equipment was in an unmarked van. I said, "That's bad news." He asked me what I meant. I said, "You're taking out the Illinois Bell coin phones and putting in private ones." He replied "No, these are from Illinois Bell." Well, the hell they were. The next day one COCOT had replaced the two telco payphones. It bore no number on its face (and still doesn't); later when I tried it it didn't disable the pad after an 800 number, but if you attempt to dial 950 it interrupts after three digits and a badly digitized voice tells you, "Invalid number. Invalid number." I saw the same installer there that second day; I looked at the COCOT and looked at him, and he acted as if he had no idea of what was on my mind. Perhaps he truly didn't. Shortly thereafter another identical COCOT appeared at the gasoline station, so now there were two phones to replace the two removed phones, but I would have a hard time deciding which is worse: one COCOT and no other phone or two COCOTs. David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us BIX: dattier GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570