Founded By: | _ _______ Guardian Of Time | __ N.I.A. _ ___ ___ Are you on any WAN? are Judge Dredd | ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ you on Bitnet, Internet ------------------+ _____ ___ ___ ___ ___ Compuserve, MCI Mail, X / ___ ___ ___ ___ ___________ Sprintmail, Applelink, +---------+ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___________ Easynet, MilNet, | 30OCT90 | ___ ______ ___ ___ ___ FidoNet, et al.? | File 64 | ___ _____ ___ ___ ___ If so please drop us a +---------+ ____ _ __ ___ line at ___ _ ___ elisem@nuchat.sccsi.com Other World BBS __ Text Only _ Network Information Access Ignorance, There's No Excuse. PTs Experience w/CLASS by Judge Dredd For several months now, Illinois Bell has been hawking CLASS. Brochures in the mail with our bills and newspaper advertisements have told us about the wonderful new services soon to be offered. It was just a question, they said, of waiting until your central office had been converted. The new features being offered here are: *66 Auto Call Back: Call back the last number which called you. No need to know the number. *69 Repeat Dial: If the number you dialed was busy, punching this will keep trying the number for up to 30 minutes, and advise you when it can connect. *60 Call Screening Enter: # plus number to be screened out plus # * plus number to be re-admitted plus * # plus 01 plus # to add the number of the last call you received, wheth or not you know the number. 1 To play a list of the numbers being screened. 0 For a helpful recording of options, etc. Distinctive Ringing Up to ten numbers can be programmed in. When a call is received from one of these numbers, your phone will give a special ring to advise you. Multi-Ring Service Two additional numbers can be associated with your number. When someone dials one of these two numbers, your phone will give a special ring. With both Distinctive Ringing and Multi-Ring Service, if you have Call Waiting, the Call Waiting tones will be different from the norm also, so that you can tell what is happening. With Multi-Ring Service, you can have it programmed so the supplementary numbers associated with your main number are forwarded when it is forwarded, or do not observe forwarding, and 'ring through' despite what the main number is doing. Alternate Answer Can be programmed so that after 3-7 rings, the unanswered call will be automatically sent to another line *WITHIN YOUR CENTRAL OFFICE*. If the number assigned as an alternate is itself busy or forwarded OUTSIDE YOUR OFFICE then Alternate Answer will not forward the call and continue to ring unanswered. Transfer on Busy/ This is just another name for 'hunt'. The No Answer difference is that hunt is free; Transfer on Busy/NA costs a couple bucks per month. Like Alternate Answer, it must forward only to a number on the same switch. Unlike hunt, it will work on NA as well. Unlike Alternate Answer, it works on busy as well. Caller*ID will be available 'eventually' they say. Now my story begins: From early this summer to the present, I've waited patiently for CLASS to be available in Chicago-Rogers Park. Finally a date was announced: October 15 the above features would be available. In mid-September, I spoke with a rep in the Irving-Kildare Business Office. She assured me *all* the above features would be available on October 15. My bill is cut on the 13th of each month, and knowing the nightmare of reading a bill which has d changes made in mid-month (page after page of pro-rata entries for credits on the old service, item by item; pro-rata entries for the new service going in, etc) it made sense to implement changes on the billing date, to keep the statement simple. She couldn't write the order for the service to start October 13, since CLASS was not officially available until the fifteenth. Well, okay, so its either wait until November 13 or go ahead and start in mid-month, worrying about reading the bill once it actually arrives. I've been ambivilent about CLASS since it is not com ble with my present service 'Starl e', but after much thought -- and since all installation and order-writing on Custom Calling features is free now through December 31! -- I decided to try out the new stuff. She took the order Wednesday afternoon and quoted 'sometime Thursday' for the work to be done. In fact it was done -- or mostly done -- by mid-afternoon Thursday. But I should have known better. I should have remembered my experience with Starline three years ago, when it took a technician in the central office *one week* to get it all in and working correctly. Still, I took IBT's word for it. I got home about 5:30 PM Thursday. *You know* I sat down right away at the phone to begin testing the new features! :) The lines were to be equipped as follows: Line 1: Call WaitingLine 2: Call Forwarding Three Way Calling Speed Dial 8 Call Forwarding Busy Repeat Dialing *69 Speed Dial 8 Auto Call Back *66 (second line used mostly by modem; Busy Repeat Dialing *69 so Call Waiting undesirable) Call Screening *60 Alternate Answer (supposed to be programmed to Voice Mail; another CO; another area code [708]; even another telco [Centel]). Busy Repeat Dialing did not work on the second line (not installed) and Alternate Answer worked (but not as I understood it would) on the first line. Plus, I had forgotten how to add 'last call received' to the screening feature. It is 5:45 ... business office open another fifteen minutes ... good! I call 1-800-244-4444 which is IBT's idea of a new way to handle calls to the business office. Everyone in the state of Illinois calls it, and the calls go wherever someone is free. Before, we could call the business office in our neighborhood direct ... no longer. I call; I go on hold; I wait on hold five minutes. Finally a rep comes on the line, a young fellow who probably Meant Well ... After getting the preliminary information to look up my account, we begin our conversation: Me: You see from the order the new features put on today? Him: Yes, which ones are you asking about? Me: A couple questions. Explain how to add the last call received to your call screening. Him: Call screening? Well, that's not available in your area yet. You see, it will be a few months before we offer it. Me: Wait a minute! It was quoted to me two days ago, and it is on the order you are reading now is it not? [I read him the order number to confirm we had the same one.] Him: Yes, it is on here, but it won't work. No matter what was written up. Really, I have to apologize for whoever would have taken your order and written it there. Me: Hold on, hold on! It *is* installed, and it *is* working! I want to know how to work it. Him: No it is not installed. The only features we can offer you at at this time are Busy Redial and Auto Callback. Would you like me to put in an order for those? Me: Let's talk to the supervisor instead. Him: (in a huff) Gladly sir. Supervisor comes on line and repeats what was said by the rep: Call Screening is not available at this time in Chicago-Rogers Park. At this point I am furious ... Me: Let me speak to the rep who took this order (I quoted her by name.) Supervisor: I never heard of her. She might be in some other office. Me: (suspicious) Say, is this Irving-Kildare? Supervisor: No! Of course not! I am in Springfield, IL. Me: Suppose you give me the name of the manager at Irving-Kildare then, and I will call there tomorrow. (By now it was 6 PM; the supervisor was getting figity and nervous wanting to go home.) Supervisor: Here! Call this number tomorrow and ask for the manager of that office, 1-800-244-4444. Me: Baloney! Give me the manager's direct number! Supervisor: Well okay, 312-xxx-xxxx, and ask for Ms. XXXX. Me: (suspicious again) She is the manager there? Supervisor: Yes, she will get you straightened out. Goodbye! Comes Friday morning, I am on the phone a few minutes before 9 AM, at the suggested direct number. Ms. XXXX reviewed the entire order and got the Busy Repeat Dial feature added to line two ... but she insisted the original rep was 'wrong for telling you call screening was available ..' and the obligatory apology for 'one of my people who mislead you'. I patiently explained to her also that in fact call screening was installed and was working. Manager: Oh really? Are you sure? Me: I am positive. Would you do me a favor? Call the foreman and have him call me back. Manager: Well, someone will call you later. Later that day, a rep called to say that yes indeed, I was correct. It seems they had not been told call screening was now available in my office. I told her that was odd, considering the rep who first took the order knew all about it. I asked when the Alternate Answer 'would be fixed' (bear in mind I thought it would work outside the CO, which it would not, which is why it kept ringing through to me instead of forwarding.) She thought maybe the foreman could figure that out. Maybe an hour later, a techician did call me to say he was rather surprised that call screening was working on my line. He gave a complete and concise explanation of how Alternate Answer and Transfer on Busy/No Answer was to work. He offered to have it removed from my line since it would be of no value to me as configured. One question he could not answer: How do you add the last call received to call screening? He could find the answer nowhere, but said he would see to it I got 'the instruction booklet' in the mail soon, so maybe I could figure it out myself. I got busy with other things, and put the question aside ... until early Saturday morning when I got one of my periodic crank calls from the same number which has plagued me for a couple months now with ring, then hangup calls on an irregular basis. For the fun of it, I punched *69, and told the sassy little girl who answered the phone to quit fooling around. She was, to say the least, d and startled by my call back. I don't think I will hear from her again. :) But I decided to ask again how to add such a number to call screening, so I called Repair Service. The Repair Service clerk pulled me up on the tube *including the work order from two days earlier* and like everyone else said: Repair: You don't have Call Screening on your line. That is not available yet in your area. We are adding new offices daily, blah, blah. I *couldn't believe* what I was hearing ... I told her I did, and she insisted I did not ... despite the order, despite what the computer said. Finally t was on to her supervisor, but as it turned out, her supervisor was the foreman on duty for the weekend. Like the others he began with apologies for how I 'had been misinformed' ... no call screening was available. Me: Tell ya what. You say no, and I say yes. You're on the test board, no? I'll hang up. You go on my line, dial *60, listen to the recording you hear, then call me back. I will wait here. Take your time. When you call back, you can apologize. Foreman: Well, I'm not on the test board, I'm in my office on my own phone. Me: So go to the test board, or pick me up in there wherever it is handy and use my line. Make a few calls. Add some numbers to the call screening; then call me back with egg on your face, okay? Foreman: Are you saying call screening is on your line and you have used it? Me: I have used it. Today. A few minutes ago I played with it. Foreman: I'll call you back. (Fifteen mionutes later) ... Mr. Townson! Umm ... I have been with this company for 23 years. I'll get to the point: I have egg on my face. Not mine really, but the company has the egg on the face. You are correct; your line has call screening. Me: 23 years you say? Are you a member of the Pioneers? (surprised) Why, uh, yes I am. Me: Fine organization isn't it ... Me: I've heard a few things. Foreman: Look, let me tell you something. I did not know -- nor *did Me: You mean no one knew it w already in place? Foreman: No, apparently not ... I think you are the only customer in the Rogers Park office who has it at this time. Because the assumption was it was not yet installed, the reps were told not to take orders for it ... I do not know how your order slipped through. Will you be telling others? I have already made some calls, and yes, others will be told Me: Well, you know the *81 feature to turn call screening on and off is still not working. Foreman: I'm not surprised. After all, none of it is supposed to be working right now. You seem to know something about this business, Mr. Townson. Me: I guess I've picked up a few things along the way. We then chatted about the Transfer on Busy/No Answer feature. I asked why, if my cell phone on 312-415-xxxx had the ability to transfer calls out of the CO and be programmed/turned on and off from the phone itself, my wire line could not. 312-415 is out of Chicago-Congress ... he thought it might have to do with that office having some different generics than Rogers Park ... but he could not give a satisfactory answer. So if there are any openings in the Telephone Pioneers, they ought to select me! :) I seem to be first with CLASS in Rogers Park; I was one of the first with Starline when it became available a few years ago (and they had a hard time programming me back then also!); I suspect I was one of the first people to have touch-tone service when I got it back in the early sixties. Indeed, getting CLASS has been a fun experience. A week or so from now if I think of it, I'll let you know of any further developments in the saga. Ken Abrams, perhaps you'd like to pass this message along to folks also. If they want to chat, they can find my number and call me. Patrick Townson --- well, its day before Halloween and just sayin that look for our NIAs in the future and always store beer in a dark place. -JD