It appears that the venerable time-of-day number for the metro Boston (US) area is dead. Calling 617-637-1234 now fails in one of at least three possible ways: busy signal after the 617-637 part (on my POTS line at home), an old error message about dialing "1" before the area code, along with a "thank you for using Bell Atlantic" message (POTS line at work), or a "number disconnected" error (PRI at work).
The second error is curious, as it obviously dates from the time before 10-digit dialing was introduced in the Boston area (circa y2k).
The former weather number (which has not worked reliably for the last year) at 617-936-1234 now fails in a similar manner.
I am curious as to when the time service was officially disconnected (if such is the case). Does anyone know? It seems to have been done without advance notice, as it worked within the last few months (though the time was never particularly accurate).
Both the time and weather services were operated by Verizon (nee Bell Atlantic nee New England Telephone) for many decades.
** Moderator note: I seem to recall that as part of the MFJ that broke up 'Ma Bell', that ILECS were forbidden from offering 'value added, non- telecom' services. 'Time and temperature', and the like, were considered to be such 'proscribed' services, at least in a number of PUC jurisidctions. Anybody know if this _was_ a local PUC decision, or was there Federal 'guidance' on the matter?I know telco-provided 'time and temp' disappeared in (at least parts of) NW Bell and Ameritech territory at divestiture time, replaced by 3rd- party 'commercial' services -- sometimes with more than one 'competing' offering -- many of which had advertiements before the 'good stuff'.