
From telecom-request@delta.eecs.nwu.edu  Tue Oct 10 15:46:58 1995
by
1995
15:46:58 -0400
telecomlist-outbound; Tue, 10 Oct 1995 10:30:28 -0500
1995
10:30:25 -0500
To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 10 Oct 95 10:30:00 CDT    Volume 15 : Issue 425

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Atri Indiresan)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Hovig Heghinian)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Mark Malson)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Matthew Lasater)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (David Kirsch)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Wilson Mohr)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Gary D. Shapiro)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Greg Hennessy)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Pieter Jacques)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (John R. Covert)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (David Breneman)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (John N. Dreystadt)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Michael Shields)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (Steven Lichter)
    Re: Where Do They Get Precise TIME Information? (John Thompson)
    Re: Help! I've Been Slammed by WilTel! (Peter Lamasney)
    Re: Help! I've Been Slammed by WilTel! (Linc Madison)
    Re: Help! I've Been Slammed by WilTel! (Gordon Burditt)
    Re: Help! I've Been Slammed by WilTel! (Chris Whittenburg)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere
there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of
public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America
On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the 
moderated
newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 

Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual
readers. Write and tell us how you qualify:

                 * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu *

The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick
Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax 
or phone at:
                    9457-D Niles Center Road
                     Skokie, IL USA   60076
                       Phone: 500-677-1616
                        Fax: 708-329-0572
  ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu **

Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using
anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email
information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to
use the information service, just ask.

************************************************************************
*
*   TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the              
*
* International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland    
* 
* under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES)   
* 
* project.  Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-
*
* ing views of the ITU.                                                 
*
************************************************************************
*

     In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft
     to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in 
     the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily
     represent the views of Microsoft. 
     ------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as
yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help
is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars
per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above.

All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any
organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages
should not be considered any official expression by the organization.

----------------------------------------------------------------------



> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I telnetted to tick without
> any problem (that is to stay the network was up; there were
> no connectivity problems) but I had no login for it of
> course. I tried FTP thinking there might be stuff in a public
> directory, but tick does not allow anonymous ftp connections.
> Is there also a DOS version of this that you are aware of?

To get time service at this (and any other Unix computer), you need to
specify socket 13. Here is the output I got:

telnet tick.usno.navy.mil 13
Trying 192.5.41.40...
Connected to tick.usno.navy.mil.
Escape character is '^]'.

US Naval Observatory Master Clock, Washington, DC
Estimating network time delay for 4 seconds...delay =   20.5 ms
MJD   DOY  UTC(USNO) (*<CR><LF> = on-time mark, follows ASCII)
49999 282 142613 UTC
* 
[many more deleted]
49999 282 142633 UTC
* 
Connection closed by foreign host.

[question: what is MJD?]

For an ordinary machine (like mine), you would usually see the system
time once, and obviously this is as accurate as my wrist watch when I
last set the time!

telnet crazies 13
Trying 141.213.10.74...
Connected to crazies.eecs.umich.edu.
Escape character is '^]'.
Mon Oct  9 10:50:07 1995
Connection closed by foreign host.


Regards,

Atri

------------------------------



bkron@netcom.com (Krusty Robinson) writes:

> You can also pick up the time signals on shortwave radio from Boulder
> and Hawaii on 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz.  You will hear second ticks
> with a voice time announcement between :50 and :00.  Their signals
> also serve as a frequency standard.

Does anyone know how to build a WWV receiver -- i.e., a self-setting
clock?  Isn't there a Heathkit for this type of thing?


Hovig Heghinian <hovig@cs.uiuc.edu>         
Department of Computer Science              
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh my! Are the Heathkit people still in
business?  I haven't heard from them in a few years, except for a couple
messages from someone saying they thought Heathkit was gone. I built my
very first terminal from a Heathkit back about 1980. It was essentially
the Zenith Z-19, but when you put it together as a Heathkit it was 
called
the H-19. They had a computer to go with it called the H-89. I certainly
wish they were still around because it was a marvelous educational 
thing.
Does anyone know what their status is these days?   PAT]

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.424.3@eecs.nwu.edu>, Stan Schwartz <stan@vnet.
net> wrote:

> In TELECOM Digest #419, TELECOM Digest Editor' wrote:

>> Actually what happens when you use the most recent version 1.6 of
>> AOL software

> I assume you're using a Mac (for shame!) because the most recent
> version of AOL for Windows is 2.5.

Actually, the latest version for the Mac is 2.6.  AOL mailed it to me 
and
I didn't even have to ask.


Mark Malson    markm@xetron.com

------------------------------



> There is a neat little shareware Windows program out there called 
TimeSync. 

> It connects to the USNO Internet Time Server at tick.usno.navy.mil, 
and sets

> your computer's clock to the USNO's time.  It's easy to use, as long 
as you 
> know how many minutes difference you are from UTC.  I'm not exactly
> sure where you get it, but I'll e-mail it to anybody who asks.  (I did
> try to telnet to 'tick', but got nowhere).

There is a similar product for Macintosh, called AutoClock. (On a Mac,
of course, you don't have to tell the application where you are or
whether you're on summer time or not; the system know what time it's
in.) Aside from setting your clock, it will figure how fast or slow
your system clock is and continuously correct for this. It takes at
least two samples for the auto-compensation to be possible, and
AutoClock will check with the server periodically to refine it's
adjustments. I haven't set my computer's clock or had it off by more
than two seconds in years.  

Happily using a Microsoft-free machine.

------------------------------



Actually, FWIW ... the 202 dial number for time synch is the Atomic 
Clock
maintained at the Naval Observatory on Mass Ave. in DC. It is in the
same compound as the Vice President's residence. Probably one of the
best houses and grounds in the capital actually.


Cheers, 

David K. 

------------------------------



jthompson@monmouth.com (John Thompson) writes:

> There is a neat little shareware Windows program out there called 
TimeSync.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is there also a DOS version of this 
that
> you are aware of?    PAT]

Courtesy of your local Archie server:

Host wuarchive.wustl.edu    (128.252.135.4)
Last updated 05:12 18 Sep 1995

Location: /systems/ibmpc/win3/uploads
FILE    -rw-r--r--  210167 bytes  03:08  7 Sep 1995  timesync.zip


Wilson Mohr     mohr@cig.mot.com       

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.422.7@eecs.nwu.edu>, jthompson@monmouth.com (John
Thompson) wrote:

> There is a neat little shareware Windows program out there called 
TimeSync. 

> It connects to the USNO Internet Time Server at tick.usno.navy.mil, 
and sets

> your computer's clock to the USNO's time.  It's easy to use, as long 
as you 
> know how many minutes difference you are from UTC.

There's even a neater little freeware Macintosh program out there
called AutoClock, except that it makes a long-distance phone call.  It
knows about time zones, standard and daylight savings time, and sets
the Macintosh clock.  But what's "neater" about it is that if you use
it to set the Macintosh clock again at some later date, it computes
how much your computer clock drifts and from then on will make
periodic adjustments.

I probably found it at an info-mac mirror site.


Gary D. Shapiro...on the WWW at http://www.rain.org/~gshapiro/

------------------------------



> The phone number you mentioned Pat is/has changed from 202-653-0351 to
> 202-762-1594.

The phone numbers at the US Naval Observatory have not changed as of
this date. 

Working for, but not speaking for, the USNO, Greg Hennessy


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: After receiving that earlier message, I
dialed 0351 and still got through on it; I don't know what the 1594 
number
is for.   PAT]

------------------------------



> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I telnetted to tick without any problem 
(that
> is to stay the network was up; there were no connectivity problems) 
but I
> had no login for it of course. I tried FTP thinking there might be 
stuff
> in a public directory, but tick does not allow anonymous ftp 
connections.
> Is there also a DOS version of this that you are aware of?    PAT]

You need to telnet to port 37, at which point tick will send you 4
bytes of binary information which contain the current time in a Unix
internal time format.  The windows program mentioned does just that,
then converts the binary data and sets your PC's clock.  I'm not aware
of a DOS version of this, and a few minutes spent just now looking
over Unix "man" pages didn't reveal the exact content of the binary
data.


Pieter Jacques   (jacques@ruthep.rutgers.edu)

------------------------------



All of this discussion of where _you_ can get precise time information
may have nothing at all to do with the phone companies.

I have evidence, in phone bills involving forwarded and/or roaming 
calls,
that the telcos really aren't all that good about precise time info.

I can show you a bill with the start time shown for the "home" portion 
and
the "roam" portion of a call differing by _four_ minutes.  The carriers
were NYNEX Mobile and Bell South Mobility.


john


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, they (the telco) don't care anymore
about that stuff. The scandal is how far off some of them can be in
their public announcements. Our local one here, giving the time and
temperature is operated by Centel on 708-296-7666. You get a short 
little
blurb about whatever telco wishes to sell you presently followed by the
time, temperature and a short summary of the weather. The forecast they
give is just a reasonable guess, and I think the time they announce is
only a 'guesstimate' also.   PAT]

------------------------------



In article <telecom15.422.7@eecs.nwu.edu> jthompson@monmouth.com (John  
Thompson) writes:

> In article <telecom15.419.6@eecs.nwu.edu>, jyee@unixg.ubc.ca (Jeffrey 
Yee) 
> wrote:

> (I did try to telnet to 'tick', but got nowhere).

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I telnetted to tick without any problem 
(that
> is to stay the network was up; there were no connectivity problems) 
but I
> had no login for it of course. I tried FTP thinking there might be 
stuff
> in a public directory, but tick does not allow anonymous ftp 
connections.
> Is there also a DOS version of this that you are aware of?    PAT]

It's not "tick", it's "tock"!  And, you telnet on port 13.  viz.: 


                                                                                     


> telnet tock.usno.navy.mil 13
> Trying 192.5.41.41... Connected to tock.usno.navy.mil.
> Escape character is '^]'.

> US Naval Observatory Master Clock, Washington, DC
> Estimating network time delay for 4 seconds...delay =   55.6 ms
> MJD   DOY  UTC(USNO) (*<CR><LF> = on-time mark, follows ASCII)
> 49999 282 023614 UTC
> * 
> 49999 282 023615 UTC
> * 
> 49999 282 023616 UTC
> * 

etc ...


David Breneman
Unix System Administrator             Mail: david.breneman@attws.com
IS - Operations                               (Formerly: ~@mccaw.com)
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc.                  Phone: +1-206-803-7362


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So either tick. (or) tock.usn.navy.mil
will work?     PAT]

------------------------------



If you are getting service directly from an Internet Service Provider,
see if they have a time server. The Internet protocols include
something for distributing time information. Sorry but I can't
remember the name for sure but I think it is NTP (Network Time
Protocol). Client software is available for most machines that will
set the local machine's clock to the time given on a server machine.
Internet Service Providers get their time from a small number of
machines that get their time from USNO directly.  The protocol
computes round trip times and does some averaging to determine the
exact time. Then your machine has the exact time.


John Dreystadt


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Check out the 'date' command on a 
Unix machine, and read the 'date' man pages. Please note that the
Unix command 'time' comes up with something totally different.  PAT] 

------------------------------



You might be interested in two WWW pages:

<URL:http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/> is the USNO Directorate of Time, and
tells you lots about official US time and how the USNO provides it to
the public.

<URL:http://www.ucla.edu/campus/computing/time/> points to software for
time synchornization for Mac, Unix, and Windows, thought you probably
shouldn't use UCLA's servers if you're off-campus.

And the easy way to get time is to telnet to tick or tock on port 13.

Shields.

------------------------------



We are now setting our clocks or will in the near future to GPU's
(Global Positioning Satellites. I don't know where that comes from
though. All system clocks are being linked now.


The above are my ideas and have nothing to do with whoever my employer 
is.
SysOp Apple Elite II and OggNet Hub (909)359-5338 2400/14.4 24 hours,
Home of GBBS/LLUCE Support for the Apple II. 
slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Speaking of setting clocks, we will be at
that semi-annual point in a couple weeks here in the USA in which most 
of
us will set our clocks back one hour. Where years ago it used to be done
on the first Sunday in October (and the last Sunday in April in the 
other
direction) we now do it on the first Sunday in April and the last Sunday
in October, so enamored are we of the extra hours of daylight during the
summer. 

When Wally, the clock repairman from Western Union dealt with this forty
years ago when WUTCO had their Time Service operating, he said it took
them two days every spring to set the clocks forward but *three* days to
set them all 'backward' in the fall. In the spring they would start on
the Friday before the official Sunday forward movement and go to 
hundreds
of offices where their clocks were located. It took roughly one minute 
to
open the case, reach in, push the hand around the dial once, close the
case and leave. It did not matter if they got it *exact* -- as long as
they pushed it foreward to within two minutes before or after where it
should be -- since on the next hourly pulse from the master clock, the
minute hand would get jerked into the correct position. The setting 
circuit
and the clock's internal gears had a two minute tolerance for clocks 
which
were incorrect. They would go office to office and get all the clocks on
Friday for the companies which were not open on Saturday, and they would
spend all day Saturday getting those which were open on weekends. In a
large highrise office building, one guy would spend a couple hours 
getting
all the clocks there, then move on to another building. They tried to 
get
it all done on Friday and Saturday, but they sometimes had a few left 
overs
to get on Monday.

In the fall though, it was a different problem. On a WUTCO clock, you 
could
not move the minute hand backward further than the twelve. Generally 
they 
had to move the hands *forward* 11 hours except in the few cases where
they arrived for the fall setting at 58 or 59 minutes past the hour (or 
on 
the hour exactly) in which case they could get a full one hour backward 
ro-
tation to a point 'close enough' that the master clock would handle the
small difference on the next pulse. This additional time spent manually
moving the clock hands added about a half day to their project, and 
Wally
said they always had 'quite a few' to finish on Monday morning. Then 
they
had some customers who did not want the clock changed at all. These were
usually state and local governments who did not observe the federal rule
on daylight savings time. For all intents and purposes, they were on the
same time as everyone else; they simply refused to set their clock to 
the
'new' time, preferring instead to open and close their doors and conduct
their business one hour earlier during the summer so they would be in
synch with the rest of the community.  

Wally noted how one year, when quite a few of the 'Time Service guys' 
were
on strike for some reason or another, the few who remained on the job 
were
confronted with 'spring ahead' and they estimated it would take about a
week to get all the clocks set, but at the last minute some of the 
strikers
came in long enough to help them do that task before walking out again. 
PAT]

------------------------------



>Is there also a DOS version of this that you are aware of?    PAT]

I am relatively certain that the software is only available for Windows.  
I found the ftp site where a copy of the software can be obtained, and
didn't find any other versions.  It's at ftphost.cac.washington.edu, in 
the 
directory /pub/winsock.

One quick correction:  I originally said that the software was 
shareware.  I 
must reverse my statement to say that it is freeware, authored by Brad 
Greer 
at the University of Washington.


John Thompson                        |   1-908-988-6520     Home
Avon-by-the-Sea, NJ  USA             |   1-908-515-2137     Numeric 
pager
                                     |   1-500-265-1582     MCI 500
e-mail: jthompson@monmouth.com       |   1-800-449-JOHN     AT&T Toll-
free
pager:  thompson@interpage.net       |   (can you tell I'm a telecom 
junkie?)

------------------------------



[bunches of stuff deleted]

Robert Ricketts <rkr@pel.com> sez:

> If users were relieved of having to pay toll charges to companies who
> slam to get customers, then slamming would slow way way down.

Yes, "slow way way down" as in "stop altogether!"  See these skid
marks?

and:

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you pick up the paper which was 
tossed
> in your yard and read it on a regular basis without attempting to 
mitigate
> the newspaper's loss in delivering to you in error, then you may be in

Who's to say they're doing it "in error"?  Could be a promotion, for
all I know, and a quite lengthy one at that.  And I can't see that I
have any responsibility to expend energy trying to determine the
reason for the paper's regular appearance.  I consume all sorts of
stuff without attempting to mitigate a loss, and apparently they're
happy with the situation, because they keep doing it.

> That's how that rule came to be passed back in the 1950's; not so that
> people today could stiff a long distance carrier out of a few dollars 
due
> to a clerical error made somewhere.

A couple of points here -- if it's _really_ only "a few dollars,"
what's the problem?  Kiss it off and get on with your business/life.
If it's _not_ a few dollars (perhaps because of the number of
occurrences), then maybe you should get your act together!  So long as
there is no penalty for sloppy or inaccurate behavior, it will
continue.

The "clerical error" argument is rubbish.  My pappy always said that
everybody is responsible for their own errors.  So if _I_ get to pay
because _you_ made an error (be it "clerical," "honest mistake" or
whatever), that must mean that _you_ get to pay for _my_ next error,
right?

The waitress makes a clerical error and writes my order down wrong ...
(the disposition of the food is entirely up to them, and sometimes
they just leave it).

"It was a computer error" -- there's a hot one.  Let's see if we can't
(1) shuck the responsibility off somewhere else, (2) onto something
mysterious that nobody understands anyway.  Well, ok, perhaps the Data
Processing Department has an appetite for the bill, then.  And that
must mean that you get to pay for my next computer error, right?

"It was an honest mistake" -- well, no aspersions are being cast upon
anyone's motives.  Just agree to pay for my next honest mistake and
we're home free.


Pete   plamasne@mail.coin.missouri.edu
They felt sorry for O.J. because he was a widower.


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe they felt sorry for him because
he is a widower. Seen on Compuserve CB the other night: someone logged
in using the handle 'Marcia Clark' who sent out a message saying, "That
bastard had the nerve to call my office and ask when he could have
his gloves back."  Oh well ...    PAT]

------------------------------



Clarence Dold (dold@rahul.net) wrote:

>> I'm unsure quite how this works.  If I receive a package addressed 
and
>> delivered to me (e.g. not delivered to the wrong person) that I did
>> not order, I believe I have the right to keep it without paying for 
it

> But you _did_ order the package (place the phone call).  You're upset
> that it didn't come from the company that you ordered it from, but
> they might be a supplier to a clearing house that you don't know.
[ ... ]
> Regardless of how it happened, including malicious slamming, _you_ 
placed
> the phone calls.  Why should they be free?

If I order a software package from XYZ mail order, and somehow that
order is fraudulently intercepted by PDQ mail order, which sends me
the item I ordered and sends me a bill, it is still unordered
merchandise: I did not order that merchandise FROM THAT VENDOR, and I
therefore do not owe PDQ one red cent for the merchandise.

As for Pat's point that the "slam" may have been a clerical error at
the local telco, I would bet that such honest errors are a very small
percentage of slams.  (Besides that, every carrier tells you to call
1-700-555-4141 to verify that your carrier has been switched, so you
would likely figure it out pretty quickly, as opposed to a "slam"
which catches most people off guard, unless they happen to verify
their carrier on a routine basis.)  Even in such a case, I think the
carrier should write off the charges on a goodwill basis, most
especially since that's probably less costly to the carrier than
figuring out what credit to issue to balance the charges to what the
carrier-of-choice would have charged.

In short, I think the only thing that will significantly reduce
slamming is to make a firm rule that any company that slams my phone
line gets NOTHING from me for those calls, provided I give notice in a
reasonably timely manner.


Linc Madison   *   San Francisco, California   *   LincMad@Netcom.com


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And provided that once you know of the
problem you *immediatly* quit using the carrier's services, prepending
the requisite 10xxx code to regain the carrier you desire until the 
service has been reinstated. See, its not only that slamming goes on.
People find out they have been slammed, and then proceed to milk it to
the hilt for a month or two, running up huge bills all the while 
claiming
ignorance. Then of course comes the bill and they claim they knew 
nothing
of it. 

There is where the 'mitigation of loss' comes in to it. You are a smart 
person. You know someone screwed up somewhere, either accidentally or
on purpose. The law says you cannot take advantage of someone else's
misfortune. And would you believe it ... gasp!  There are people in
the world who get called by a carrier soliciting their business who
give their verbal okay in a phone call to the change of carrier only
to later be called by their original carrier asking 'what for' ... and
rather than admit they okayed the switch, they claim they did not. Some 
people give a verbal okay on the phone knowing that later on they can
claim there was slamming and they'll get to play the injured party and
not have to pay for the 'contested' calls. So it works both ways.  The
general public is just as good at con-artistry as are the carrier
marketing reps.  PAT]

------------------------------



>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This comes up here frequently. You 
should
>> pay WilTel the amount you expected to pay your regular carrier. You 
have

I don't agree.  You should pay your regular carrier the amount you
expected to pay your regular carrier (that carrier's rates).  This
*COULD* be zero (unlikely, but it could happen) if your calling plan
charges by "hours" and the slammed calls wouldn't have cost you
another hour (Anyone still do that?  This kind of plan used to be
popular.)  It could be zero if you work for a phone company and get
free long distance up to a limit (which you wouldn't have gone over)
as a job benefit.

If the incremental cost of the calls would have been negative, you 
should collect that from the slammer (e.g. 25% off if you spend $25 a 
month, and this month you came two cents short of $25 because the 
slammer grabbed a $1 call near the end of the month.  The slammer owes 
you about $5.)

>> to pay *something* since you did make the calls expecting (I assume!) 
to
>> pay for them. Unless you can prove the change was made deliberatly in 
a
>> fraudulent way, there is probably nothing more you should do.   PAT]

> yourself. The rule about not having to pay for (or return) merchandise
> which comes unsolicited to you in the mail only applies when there was
> no basis of any kind for it to be sent out.

Even if they sent the package by mistake, this still does not obligate
me to do more than inform them of where the package is and how they
can come and pick it up.  If they ask me to do more than that, rest
assured their own "handling" charges WILL be used against them.
If they want rain-proof storage in a place where it's less likely to 
be stolen than the front yard, they can ask for and pay for it through 
the nose, cash in advance.

> That's how that rule came to be passed back in the 1950's; not so that
> people today could stiff a long distance carrier out of a few dollars 
due
> to a clerical error made somewhere. 

I believe the intent of the rule is still to prevent a long distance
carrier from stiffing a customer out of a few dollars due to a, um,
"mistake" which is usually at best criminal negligence and at worst
massive fraud (although it may be the fault of telephone solicitors
hired by the LD company, not the LD company itself, doing most of it).

If the LD company doesn't in good faith believe they have a SIGNATURE
of someone authorized before making a switch, I call that criminal
negligence.  If the LEC accepts any switch request from a long-distance
company, knowing that it is a long-distance company (that is, it is a 
business of a type known to slam regularly), without seeing a signature, 
I call that criminal negligence.   I suspect at least 90% of slamming 
fits this description.

> The rule is, if there is/was *any basis* for the action to take
> place (signed order, phone call from someone, etc) and the company
> acted in good faith, then you are *not* permitted to benefit from the
> error the company made.  PAT]

So why is the company permitted to benefit from the error it made?

I propose the settlement be made like this:

Customer complains when he first notices the slamming (which is
likely to be a few weeks after the end of the first billing period 
after the first call after the slam, when he looks at the bill).  
Customer needs to get in the habit of dialing 10XXX on all LD calls.

- Customer pays regular LD company (the one he was slammed away from)
that company's normal rates.  This amount could be zero with calling 
plans.  Negative amounts are collected from the company at fault.

- Company at fault pays customer an amount equal to the LEC's "switch 
fee" for customer's assistance in fixing their records.  This amount
doubles for each separate slam after the third one in a 10-year period.

- Company at fault (possibly LEC) pays LEC to switch customer back.

- Company at fault pays triple amount billed for slammed calls to FCC's 
Slamming Enforcement Fund.


                                                    


How do you determine who's at fault?  Like this:

- If the LEC cannot or does not produce a signed and dated request 
(or a request for a switch from a LD company with a claim they have 
such a request on file, although I'd really like to see this practice 
stopped dead -- the LD company should have to deliver the original 
signed request) for a switch, the LEC is at fault.  If the LEC cannot 
identify who made the request, the LEC is at fault.

- If the LD company cannot or does not produce a signed and dated 
request they claimed to have on file, the LD company is at fault.
If the LD company's records have been destroyed by fire, the LD
company is at fault.

- If the signed and dated request is in the name of someone not 
authorized 
to make switches for that line, and the request is not forged, that 
person 
is at fault (and really stupid if they used their real name!).

- If the signed and dated request is forged in the name of the 
subscriber,
it's the forger who is at fault but you'll probably never catch him, 
unless it turns out to be a telephone solicitor who was hired by/on 
behalf 
of the LD company.

- If the signed and dated request is forged in the name of someone other
than the subscriber, the company that first accepted the request and 
failed 
to check that the names match is at fault.


Gordon L. Burditt   sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon

------------------------------



M. Troutman (ir002937@interramp.com) wrote:

> Next, find WilTel's phone number.  Here is their web site ...
> http://www.wiltel.com/corporat/cfwt.html
> Harass them.  Let them know how much you dislike them.
> Try anyname@wiltel.com ... send hate mail!

I really don't think any of your above recomendations will help
anything.  LDDS WorldCom, as WilTel is now known, can be reached at
1-800-864-4060.  A more general web site address is just
http://www.wcom.com

Instead of sending hate mail, some investigation might be possible
on our part to determine who put the request in to change
preferred carriers.

Maybe customer service can determine if it was a WorldCom reseller,
which was the source of the problem, and take some sort of action.


Regards,

Chris Whittenburg
Data Network Engineer (918) 588-5845
LDDS Worldcom  chris_whittenburg@wiltel.com
<a href="http://phantom.wiltel.com:2080/~chrisw">Me.</a>

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V15 #425
******************************

                                                                                                        
