Re: Need Info Re A/C 650 Dialing Problem

Today I drove to South San Francisco, in area code 650, and used a pay
> phone to call my own number. If I dial 1-415-271-xxxx (my number) I > get through fine. If I dial 415-271-xxxx (wthout the 1) I do *not* > get the "You must first dial 1", but instead I get the "The number you > have reached is not in service at this time". I think this is at the > crux of the problem.

Part of the problem, sure. "Crux" I doubt.

What percentage of folks trying to call you, do you imagine, forget to dial the 1 ? I seriously doubt that it is 100%. 1+10d dialing has been around a long time. I'd be surprised if the human error rate is much above 10%.

The call will probably complete without the 1 from any major cell phone provider.

Moreover, screening is different for pay phones. Calls from other types of lines might get the right response when they dial wrong. Your testing wasn't thorough enough and "I think" it led you to an invalid conclusion.

Can anybody shed any light on this? Does anybody here know someone at > AT&T/SBC who can see to it that the "You must first dial 1" recording > is restored the way it should be?

I know that for unusual things like this it is likely to be a MAJOR hassle getting the drone who answers to understand the problem but you really should try reporting it to the predominate LEC for that area. Of course, it will be a waste of your time unless you can give them the phone number of the pay station where you experienced the problem ... because they don't know how to take a report without a phone number. And it might be important because it might not be an LEC phone, in which case it might not be their (AT&T/SBC) problem at all.