As it happens, I used to be a computer programmer at NYNEX, and I worked on the system that handled service orders - the mechanism by which customers' decisions were communicated to the groups responsible for making changes.
I remember that everything worked well for almost all ordinary transactions: a new business line (1MB) would flow through the distribution system (a separate entity) to the central office control center and to the Installation & Repair group.
However, unusual or one-of services could be problematic, with customer service reps entering line after line of "remarks" that described what the customer actually wanted - for example, a request from two people who shared an apartment to have the two numbers of a two-party line installed at the same location. If there wasn't a USOC code to describe it, things got a lot slower.
That system is long gone now: I don't know what replaced it, but it seems that it's still hard to accomplish certain tasks. As it happens, I ordered toll restrictions placed on my home phone many years ago, since my son was running up large bills talking to friends from his school in Vermont. We obtained a Google Voice account, and have been using it for all our long distance ever since.
My son is a young man now, and living on his own, so the month before last, I sent a letter to Verizon and gave them permission to remove the toll restrictions. Google Voice is nice, as far as it goes, but it was impossible to dial any number outside my "Contiguous" service area without having to use it, and (more importantly) I couldn't retrieve numbers from my Caller ID list and dial them automatically.
On Friday, my wife left to attend the her cousin's funeral (I couldn't go: I just started a new job). I came home on Friday to find a note saying that my wife couldn't call anyone. I determined that the "Speed-Dial 30" service wasn't on my line anymore, and I spent the weekend waiting for Verizon to fix what I thought was a software glitch that probably affected a large block of customers.
As of 4 am today, it was still out. The Verizon repair person told me that it's not on my account. She transferred me to Service Orders, and they told me that an order had been filed for changes to my line on October 23rd: the long-awaited removal of the toll restrictions. It seems, however, that something went wrong in the process, and the Service Order person told me that "Speed-Dial 30" is now a "grand- fathered" offering, not available to new subscribers, but she referred the problem to the "offline group" who will call me within 24 to 72 business hours.
I just can't think of a way that removing a toll restriction would translate into removing a Speed Dialing feature: it's a mystery to me.
Bill