RE: Wanted: Clueful Individual @ TeleGlobe.net
Out of curiousity, how does the telco world handle this? When some one signs up for MCI longdistance, I assume that on some calls they will cross off the MCI network (and potentially though several others) that will be piled mile high in static. The customers will complain about their
I have one case to report. If it's typical, then the telco world tracks all the grumbling/finger-pointing I've seen here. I was trying to call 800-xxx-xxxx. It didn't work. I forget the details, but it was roughly: PacBell (my local carrier) said it wasn't their problem. AT&T (my long distance carrier) said it wasn't their problem, but they told me which carrier owned that number. Of course, they couldn't fix it - their end worked OK. Some operator tried it and said "works for me". I'm pretty sure some local switch had a bad entry in the routing table for that number. I talked to one semi-clued person, perhaps because I called during lunch. They couldn't get it fixed right away, but at least sounded like they would look into it. Fortunately, I wasn't in a hurry. It was working in a day or two when I tried again. Sound familiar? I considered calling the PUC to see how things like that should get handled but didn't get around to it.
Also sprach Hal Murray
I considered calling the PUC to see how things like that should get handled but didn't get around to it.
Unfortunatly, its been my experience that the PUCs are not in much better shape when trying to figure out how something like this should be handled than someone like many people on this list that have a large amount of experience dealing with the telco network. I'm really coming to the conclusion, having worked with Kentucky's PUC (Public Service Commission here) quite a bit in the past year, that they are very good intentioned, but just don't have detailed issues like this get brought up to them very often. I've been watching some of the cases that have been coming before the KY PSC recently, and it can get quite humorous...not to play them down, but there's a lot of joe blow consumer residential phone customer saying that they shouldn't have to pay their phone bill for some contrived reason or another...usually phone bill totals in the double digits...nothing earth shattering. There are the slamming cases that get brought before them quite a bit, but very rarely are there real, significant, telecom policy impacting, convoluted technical issues types of cases brought before at least the KY PSC...of course we are kind of in an area that doesn't have a huge reputation for being technologically advanced (yes, I *am* wearing shoes! ;) but it is rather interesting for the *lack* of significant cases in this realm. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
Unfortunatly, its been my experience that the PUCs are not in much better shape when trying to figure out how something like this should be handled than someone like many people on this list that have a large amount of experience dealing with the telco network. I'm really coming .. .. slamming cases that get brought before them quite a bit, but very rarely are there real, significant, telecom policy impacting, convoluted technical issues types of cases brought before at least the KY PSC...of course we are kind of in an area that doesn't have a huge reputation for being technologically advanced (yes, I *am* wearing shoes! ;) but it is rather interesting for the *lack* of significant cases in this realm.
California is quite different, where Pacific Bell has violated peoples' privacy and the FCC's fair access regulations enough that the PUC is promoting a referendum named the "Telecommunications Bill of Rights" or some such likeness. -- Joe Rhett Chief Technology Officer JRhett@ISite.Net ISite Services, Inc. PGP keys and contact information: http://www.noc.isite.net/Staff/
Also sprach Joe Rhett
California is quite different, where Pacific Bell has violated peoples' privacy and the FCC's fair access regulations enough that the PUC is promoting a referendum named the "Telecommunications Bill of Rights" or some such likeness.
Kentucky did a PSC "Code of Conduct" for utilities, then also passed it as a law...only problem being that they explicitly exempted telco's. The Code of Conduct was great...dealt with quite a few issues concerning intermingling of regulated and unregulated services from telco's and other utilities, but then they listened to BellSouth claiming that everything that the Code of Conduct specified they already had to do *cough*nonsense*cough*. They used the Telecom Act of '96's section 272 as the basis for much of their arguments...but they neglected to mention that 272 is no longer in effect (sunset clause effective Feb. of this year). -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
At 12:11 AM -0700 7/26/00, Joe Rhett wrote:
California is quite different, where Pacific Bell has violated peoples' privacy and the FCC's fair access regulations enough that the PUC is promoting a referendum named the "Telecommunications Bill of Rights" or some such likeness.
But in other ways, California's PUC is more of the same: [paraphrased, this was some time ago] Me: I've been without telco service for two days, they committed to be here yesterday between 8am and noon, and then again TODAY between 8am and noon, and they still aren't there. PUC: Do you have that in writing? Me: Pardon? PUC: Do you have that in writing from Pacific Bell, that they would be there during those windows? Me: I need to get repair commitments in writing? Do you harbor some delusion that the US Postal Service could accept their mailed commitment at 1a.m. Sunday morning, and have it waiting for me Monday morning at 8am to flash at people when they fail to meet their deadline? PUC: We can only act on a written guarantee, or some other evidence of the commitment. Me: I could tape the conversation, but you'd probably tell me that was illegal as well. PUC: Indeed, it would be illegal, unless you notified them first. Me: To which, of course, they would say "No, you may tape the call" and hang up. I know, I worked for a telco, that's the standard response. PUC: Yes, that's correct. Most telcos will not speak to you if you are taping the call. Me: So basically my only hope of getting any assistance from you guys is to find the appropriate person to bribe with ample payoffs, the way the telcos do, right? PUC: I don't know what you're talking about, sir. Me: Then your bosses aren't sharing. You should complain. Have a nice day.
When I was working for an ISP that got most of its dial-up lines from CLECs, we ran into this sort of problem a lot. Generally we would end up with a situation where no customers off a given CO would be able to call one of our phone numbers, instead either getting a fast busy, or such an excessive error rate that they couldn't pass data effectively. Having the customer call Ameritech repair (Ameritech was the local ILEC) generally resulted in Ameritech telling the customer that their line worked and the problem must be somewhere else. On the other hand, if I called the CLECs' switch people, they could generally call the Ameritech call routing people, who would find a problem somewhere in Ameritech's trunking and get it fixed. I'm not sure how this works if the companies involved are an RBOC and MCIWorldcom. I suppose it's possible that neither of them cares. In many cases, though, the solution seems to call the smallest company involved. There are fewer layers to go through there before getting to the people with clue, and the smaller companies have a lot to lose if they can't connect calls to the bigger companies. -Steve On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Jeff Mcadams wrote:
Also sprach Hal Murray
I considered calling the PUC to see how things like that should get handled but didn't get around to it.
Unfortunatly, its been my experience that the PUCs are not in much better shape when trying to figure out how something like this should be handled than someone like many people on this list that have a large amount of experience dealing with the telco network. I'm really coming to the conclusion, having worked with Kentucky's PUC (Public Service Commission here) quite a bit in the past year, that they are very good intentioned, but just don't have detailed issues like this get brought up to them very often. I've been watching some of the cases that have been coming before the KY PSC recently, and it can get quite humorous...not to play them down, but there's a lot of joe blow consumer residential phone customer saying that they shouldn't have to pay their phone bill for some contrived reason or another...usually phone bill totals in the double digits...nothing earth shattering. There are the slamming cases that get brought before them quite a bit, but very rarely are there real, significant, telecom policy impacting, convoluted technical issues types of cases brought before at least the KY PSC...of course we are kind of in an area that doesn't have a huge reputation for being technologically advanced (yes, I *am* wearing shoes! ;) but it is rather interesting for the *lack* of significant cases in this realm. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Gibbard scg@gibbard.org +1 415 738-4178 http://www.gibbard.org/~scg
On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Steve Gibbard wrote:
When I was working for an ISP that got most of its dial-up lines from CLECs, we ran into this sort of problem a lot. Generally we would end up with a situation where no customers off a given CO would be able to call one of our phone numbers, instead either getting a fast busy, or such an excessive error rate that they couldn't pass data effectively. Having the customer call Ameritech repair (Ameritech was the local ILEC) generally resulted in Ameritech telling the customer that their line worked and the problem must be somewhere else. On the other hand, if I called the CLECs' switch people, they could generally call the Ameritech call routing people, who would find a problem somewhere in Ameritech's trunking and get it fixed.
I'd like to point out I've had similar experiences with Ameritech. When I was working for a local ISP in the Cleveland area, we used a CLEC exclusively for our dialup PRIs. We often had situations where customers off of a given CO would get dead air, or retrain constantly. The CLEC would claim nothing was wrong and point at the LEC... Customer would call Ameritech repair and be told nothing was wrong or that there was nothing they could do since the customer was dialing a CLEC NPA-NXX. This particular CLEC had a 48+ hour outage in 1998 to 4 of their NPA-NXX after Ameritech left a loopback in a piece of fiber between the two companies after a maintinence window, closed the ticket, and forgot about the maint. for a couple of days. While I don't often attribute to malice that which can be covered by general apathy and stupidity... I've often wondered if Ameritech didn't have a vested interest in not running down such problems. -Doug
Hal Murray wrote:
I was trying to call 800-xxx-xxxx. It didn't work. I forget the details, but it was roughly:
PacBell (my local carrier) said it wasn't their problem. AT&T (my long distance carrier) said it wasn't their problem, but they told me which carrier owned that number. Of course, they couldn't fix it - their end worked OK. Some operator tried it and said "works for me".
Gee, this sounds familiar. I live in Virginia, using BellAtlantic for local service and MCI for long distance. I tried to place a call to a friend on Connecticut. It wouldn't connect. I'd get a dead line (no ring, no error, no nothing) for a minute and then my own dialtone again. Calling other long distance destinations had no problem. Bell Atlantic insisted that they had no problem (and since the call went through when I use the 1010-ATT prefix, they were probably right). When I called MCI, the operator tried to place the call and it went through fine, so they insisted that it couldn't possibly be their problem, but she was kind enough to open a trouble ticket anyway. I have no idea what actually happened (probably a defective line card in a switch somewhere) but it was working the next day. -- David
Unnamed Administration sources reported that David Charlap said:
Gee, this sounds familiar.
....
I have no idea what actually happened (probably a defective line card in a switch somewhere) but it was working the next day.
As I'm sure Sean can document, it was more likely a routing table error. You can expect more of them. Some People will just flame Judge Greene, but besides the multi-company arena we now have, there's another reason for the growing number of such issues: rapid growth & insufficent Folks with Clue. which I guess closes the loop -- Telco's & ISP's ARE more alike than different. (I type this while on hold with Hell Atlant^H^H^Y VorRISEon, as they insist that there is no ISDN in a CO, while I look at a bill for same.....) -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
participants (8)
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David Charlap -
David Lesher -
Derek J. Balling -
Douglas A. Dever -
Hal Murray -
Jeff Mcadams -
Joe Rhett -
Steve Gibbard