Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: dattier@chinet.chi.il.us (David Tamkin)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: COCOTs and Long Distance
Message-ID: <4606@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 90 17:13:24 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Organization: TELECOM Digest
Lines: 34
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 136, Message 1 of 7


For in TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 132, Evan Eickmeyer wrote:

| I thought of a solution that works -- if the
| COCOT accepts incoming calls, and, unfortunately, many do not.  If you
| are an AT&T customer, dial their residential customer service at
| 800-222-0300.
 
| Explain that you are at a COCOT and cannot reach an AT&T operator.
| Give them the telephone number you are at, and ask them to have an
| AT&T operator call you.  

And lo, Patrick Townson did respond:

| [Moderator's Note: Of course you are making an assumption that the
| no-good sleezebag of a COCOT owner doesn't disallow (or make a
| surcharge for) 800 calls. Some of them are such deadbeats they charge
| for that also. They would charge to call 911 (or cut it off) if the
| law did not make them give it for free.  PT]

Mr. Eickmeyer (or his alter ego, Mr. Henderson) is also making the
assumption that the COCOT has its own telephone number on its face.
Around Chicago that is the exception more than the rule.  COCOT
owners, being in general the no-good sleazebags as which Mr. Townson
characterizes them, are so jealous of every second of the telephone's
use that they do not want it tied up with incoming calls; however,
most of them are too cheap in their cheapness to disable incoming
calls or shut off the ringer; they simply remove the printed telephone
number from the front of the phone and figure no one can get make a
call to it.


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