PDA

View Full Version : Help making phone calls in Connecticut



John Coloccia
01-08-2012, 12:02 PM
I don't have this problem on my cell phones OR Vonage. From a regular landline, however, I've discovered that I don't know how to reliably make a phone call anymore.

I always have to put the (860) area code in front of the number, but if the number is "local" (whatever that means) I have to NOT put a "1" in front. If it's "not local", I MUST put the "1".

So for every number I dial, it seems like I have to know the specific phone's calling plan and have every exchange memorized so I know precisely how this call will go or I can not reliably make a phone call.

What the heck am I doing wrong?? It can not possibly be this difficult to make a stupid phone call, can it? Why does it give me a message to not include the "1" in front. If it knew I included a "1", why didn't it just ignore it and just place the stupid call?? Ditto for "you must use a '1' ". Well, if you know what the error is, why are you telling me? Just want to make me feel stupid? Just place the call already, and cut out the nonsense.

Mike Henderson
01-08-2012, 1:09 PM
Yep, the traditional phone companies can be pretty dumb sometime. Kids who use cell phones don't even know you have to put a 1 in front of a long distance number because the cell companies can figure out if it's long distance or not without the 1. There's no reason the land line people couldn't do the same.

I think the only reason they haven't done anything is that land line business is low margin so they're not very interested in it.

Mike

Jim Falsetti
01-08-2012, 1:40 PM
John,

We have the same problem as you. Our land line carrier started this nonesense a few years ago, when they went to adding the area code in front of the prefix even for local calls. By now we pretty much know when we don't need the "1". We have never called the phone company to complain. But now we will.

Jim

Phil Thien
01-08-2012, 1:55 PM
These issues are typically due to wire centers of local carriers getting all screwed up from years of porting numbers out to alternative (cell, VOIP, budget) carriers. Years of improper PIC updates, etc., add up to a routing nightmare.

I've observed that problems tend to be worse for customers that elect to have no long distance carrier.

If you complain to your carrier and the problem doesn't get resolved, just file an FCC complaint. You can do it online, it is pretty painless.

Jim Koepke
01-08-2012, 1:59 PM
This is similar to our fate here in Southwest Washington.

My only thought is that each town has its own central office (telephone term for where the dialing equipment resides) that are hold overs from long ago. Many of the calls that are now local didn't used to be local. That and the explosion of phone numbers requiring the use of non-traditional dialing prefixes doesn't work well with some of the old equipment. I have been in some places where a local call only required 4 or 5 digits to be dialed. Not sure if any of those still exist. I worked a few years for the phone company about 40 years ago.

Cell phones run through a different system that is fairly modern compared to the old land based dialing equipment. Some of the land line dialing is still mechanical in some areas whereas the cell phone system is all electronic. Being electronic, it can be updated by a programmer at a desk. Mechanical equipment requires major amounts of work.

Calling and complaining might make you feel better, but it likely won't change the time frame of the holding company getting around to upgrading the local central office.

jtk

Mike Henderson
01-08-2012, 2:30 PM
This is similar to our fate here in Southwest Washington.

My only thought is that each town has its own central office (telephone term for where the dialing equipment resides) that are hold overs from long ago. Many of the calls that are now local didn't used to be local. That and the explosion of phone numbers requiring the use of non-traditional dialing prefixes doesn't work well with some of the old equipment. I have been in some places where a local call only required 4 or 5 digits to be dialed. Not sure if any of those still exist. I worked a few years for the phone company about 40 years ago.

Cell phones run through a different system that is fairly modern compared to the old land based dialing equipment. Some of the land line dialing is still mechanical in some areas whereas the cell phone system is all electronic. Being electronic, it can be updated by a programmer at a desk. Mechanical equipment requires major amounts of work.

Calling and complaining might make you feel better, but it likely won't change the time frame of the holding company getting around to upgrading the local central office.

jtk
I really doubt if any of the old stepper switches are still in use. Couple of reasons:

1. The maintenance cost on steppers is so high that you can recover the cost of a modern electronic switch in just a few years.
2. Steppers were designed to work with rotary dial phones. I suppose you could do some special interface to make them work with DTMF but it'd be a lot cheaper to just convert to a modern electronic switch.
3. Steppers are BIG and take a lot of power.

I've been in a number of central offices. Those are the building in your hometown, with the phone company logo on them, and NO windows. Many are pretty large buildings. The phone company doesn't need as many central offices now, as they use to. In the old days, a central office would serve the area around it, in a radius of some distance (I forget the distance now - too many years since I retired). Now days, they use an electronic switch that has a LOT more capacity than the old steppers, and is significantly smaller - I mean a lot smaller - many central offices are mostly empty space. They then install a device known as a DSLAM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subscriber_line_access_multiplexer)in the neighborhood, and use fiber to connect that to the central office. The DSLAM is like a small central office. And since it's connected to the central office via fiber, it can be almost any distance from the central office.

All this stuff is software controlled and they can put new software in it whenever they want to. So if they wanted to do away with the need to dial 1 they absolutely could do it. And, in any case, the detection of the initial 1 is only done at the local office (or DSLAM), the place that terminates the wire pair going to your house. After that the 1 is meaningless. The phone company knows what you're trying to do by then and can easily route the call.

Regarding cellular service, there's two parts to the cellular. One is the wireless equipment and the other is the switching equipment. The switching equipment is EXACTLY the same as is used in the land line business.

Mike

[I just looked at the Wikipedia description of DSLAM and they talk about it as a device to provide DSL service. Before there was DSL, there where DSLAMs, but the DSLAM was used to terminate telephone lines. After DSL became popular, the DSLAM was also used to terminate DSL as well as telephone calls. After all, DSL rides above the voice frequency but on the same wires. So when you terminate the wires, you have to terminate both the voice and the data.]

Jim Koepke
01-08-2012, 3:37 PM
I really doubt if any of the old stepper switches are still in use. Couple of reasons:

1. The maintenance cost on steppers is so high that you can recover the cost of a modern electronic switch in just a few years.
2. Steppers were designed to work with rotary dial phones. I suppose you could do some special interface to make them work with DTMF but it'd be a lot cheaper to just convert to a modern electronic switch.
3. Steppers are BIG and take a lot of power.

As true as all of this is, I would not be surprised to find some still in use in low economic areas.

I would imagine there are likely some old crossbar switches still operating.

Things most likely have changed since my time at Pac Bell. Back then the rate structure was set up in such a way the phone companies (in California) could actually be more profitable by being inefficient. There was also life projection issues that wouldn't get equipment replaced until it was "scheduled" to be replaced.

This may all be different now. I have not paid much attention to the industry for years.

I do know at the time there were still some independent phone companies, mostly in rural areas, that did not have the money to change their systems even when projected savings would have paid for it.

In my case, the area code covers south and northwest Washington with a few area codes breaking up parts of the area.

If I want to make a call outside of Longview, WA the area code needs to be dialed.

jtk

John Lohmann
01-08-2012, 8:30 PM
I have been in many CO's in rural LA & MS, never seen a step office, these were all formerly Bell offices, maybe some Independent carriers might have them , but I doubt it.

Jim Becker
01-08-2012, 8:39 PM
If the CO switch is programmed correctly, adding a "1" in front shouldn't stop the call from going through, but the "1" also shouldn't be needed for any call within your own area code, even if it's not "local" from a billing perspective. If this is your residence, give your provider a call to discuss.

Kevin W Johnson
01-08-2012, 8:54 PM
I wouldn't be at all surprised if land line carriers that also have cell service (ie Verizon), don't do this on purpose to help kill off land lines by making them a PIA to use. It's no secret that Verizon wants out of the land line business anyway.

John Coloccia
01-08-2012, 9:32 PM
If the CO switch is programmed correctly, adding a "1" in front shouldn't stop the call from going through, but the "1" also shouldn't be needed for any call within your own area code, even if it's not "local" from a billing perspective. If this is your residence, give your provider a call to discuss.

Shoot...I haven't had an actual landline in almost 15 years. I only notice it one day a week when I go to work.

Mike Cutler
01-09-2012, 5:38 AM
John

We have the oldest telephone infrastructure in the country right here in eastern Ct. If it's old and antiquated, it's probably still in use.
I gave up my land line years ago. It was just one step short of Green Acres. I could hear other people placing calls, and hear parts, or all of their conversation. My dial up modem speed was a lightning fast 14.4.

JIm
We have to place the number 1 in front of even our own area code. This is from the phone company. There are too many phone numbers and not enough "capability" to add another area code, so this is their work around.
Like John, I am also an 860 area code.

John Coloccia
01-09-2012, 7:25 AM
JIm
We have to place the number 1 in front of even our own area code. This is from the phone company. There are too many phone numbers and not enough "capability" to add another area code, so this is their work around.
Like John, I am also an 860 area code.

Unless it's a local call. Then if you put the "1", the call fails. It's the screwiest thing I've ever had to deal with. You just have to sorta guess what's local and what's not. Calling Manchester? Probably local. Woodstock. Maybe long distance. Pomfret? Who the heck knows? Mystic? Long distance. Middletown? Hmm....depends on your calling plan, I think. LOL.

My Vonage phone works like a normal phone (i.e. like phone I grew up with). You never have to put the area code within your own area code, and generally I don't have to dial a 1 for long distance.

Jim Falsetti
01-09-2012, 9:14 AM
Well, after reading Mike's comment about Green Acres, complaining to the phone company is definitely not a good idea. Might end up owning the phone company just like Oliver Wendall Douglas!

Jim

Phil Thien
01-09-2012, 9:32 AM
I think a lot of these problems are probably due to downsizing of workforces. They got rid of the guys that know how to configure the switches properly.

None of these issues are because "this is the way it has to be." They are all due to "we don't know what we are doing."

Matt Meiser
01-09-2012, 10:29 AM
Phil, I think that's certainly true at my phone company. In order to resolve serious service problems on my 2 land lines the rerouted one to a remote location closer to my house than the central office which is 6 miles away. It did resolve 90% of the problems (we're still fighting over the last one--I'm not letting them give up and call it good enough) but boy did they mess up my billing. For a while I couldn't dial anything without dialing 1 first--something I didn't realize since all my calls on that line are long distance. Then when the bill came they were billing me at default rates for LD--and they aren't even my LD provider. My phone bill on that line which has been +/- $0.20 of $62 for a few years was $115 one short month, then $270 the next despite assurances it was fixed. It was due to generate late Friday night but I haven't seen an email yet today. Between the service and billing issues, I no longer contact customer service. I now email one of a couple management level people who's names I have. If they don't respond within a couple days, I resend CC'ing the Regional President which is sure to get a response even on a holiday. They've ended up giving us $100's in billing credits as a result of their screwups. When those run out, I think we are going to port one of the numbers over to a cell phone.

Mike Cutler
01-09-2012, 11:50 AM
Well, after reading Mike's comment about Green Acres, complaining to the phone company is definitely not a good idea. Might end up owning the phone company just like Oliver Wendall Douglas!

Jim

It's actually pretty funy in retrospect, but at the time it wasn't.
At that time touchtone phones had a different tone for each numeral, so as I was on the phone I could hear someone else calling another number, and by the different tones get the phone number that had been dialed. I could also hear part, or all, of their conversation. I complained many times but never got anywhere,and once when they told me that they thought the problem was the wiring in the house. I explained to them that I was standing in my front yard, with the phone line disconnected to the house, and hot wired to the phone in my hand. I felt like Oliver Douglas.
For 10-12 years I complained. It never got fixed, so I just discontinued the landline.