The city of the future, but the future is now, and your nightmares are coming true.
Magnifico, city of morns.
It's a hot night on Sumanula.
The walls of the city shimmer and melt, they ooze and undulate.
They shine with a smeary greasiness, a colossal shrine to fast food and sticky fingers.
Does anyone clean up anymore?
Does anyone care?
The Adventures of RWBY 3.
RWBY, the galactic gumshoe, returns with all new adventures every Friday, 1 o'clock in
the afternoon, right here on listener-sponsored WBAI New York.
And this is WBAI in New York, where we have all kinds of interesting feedback, ah, that's
why.
And it's time for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cut.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bum-diddly-bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bum-diddly-bum!
You know, I find it amazing how quickly things change, and how only about ten years ago,
you know, even less than ten years ago, computers and data transfer were rather bulky, in fact
impossible compared to today's standards.
I remember when 300 baud was considered the standard, and 1200 baud was considered amazingly
fast.
And of course, for those of you that have not yet jumped into the computer world, those
terms mean nothing.
We're going to try to change that for you.
We're going to try to make those expressions meaningful to everybody.
Today, 1200 baud is incredibly slow.
Incredibly slow.
300 baud is unheard of.
9600 seems to be the standard, but all kinds of other numbers are popping up.
And right now, even as I speak, even as I'm talking to you now, I'm downloading information
on my computer back home.
It's been going for 24 hours now.
24 hours downloading more than 10 megabytes of information that I was able to retrieve
from a computer system in Australia last night.
And without costing a cent.
And I might add, without breaking any laws either.
Things certainly have changed in the last ten years.
Now through the miracles of internet, it's conceivable to communicate virtually any place
on the globe at a very low cost and at a very high rate of speed.
Ten years ago, a 10 megabyte hard drive would be impossible to lift and would be able to
cause a lot of noise and a lot of power drain.
Any particular room you put it in.
But now, now you can get a 105 meg hard drive that you can carry with you any place you go.
One has to wonder, how far are we going to go in this journey of ours?
How big are the data storage units going to be?
How fast will we be able to transfer bits and bytes?
And how cheap will it all get?
The answers to those questions, I think, are contingent on how we react to technology.
If we look at technology as a right rather than a privilege, I think we'll see a lot
more of it in the hands of everyday people like you and me.
But it's up to us.
212-279-3400 is the telephone number tonight.
In fact, it's the telephone number every night.
But we're going to see who's out there and what's on their minds.
Let's visit number one.
Good evening.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
How do you feel about baby bells providing information services?
Well, I'm a bit leery of the recent ruling on that.
It's going to be good technology-wise.
You might see some things like Minitel, which is the system in France that allows you to
do virtually everything over a video text service.
I sure don't want the money I pay to get a dial tone on my phone to go towards paying
for that kind of thing.
You know what I mean?
What?
We shouldn't be forced into it.
Do you think that local phone rates will go up if this starts to develop?
If mismanaged, they will go up, yes.
If kept separate...
I see nothing wrong with baby bells getting into that industry as long as it's kept separate
from the industry that they're supposed to be providing to us, namely telephone service.
I also think it's high time that we see some competition on the local level.
When I pick up a phone, I should have a choice.
Do I want to use New York Telephone?
Do I want to use some other phone company?
Right now, we don't have that choice, and as a result, we're held captive by certain
unfair rules and regulations.
I agree we need a lot more local competition.
Do you think that information services have a point when they say they're afraid that
they are going to have to compete with people they depend on to deliver their services?
What was the question?
Well, let's say you dial up CompuServe, okay?
They have to go through your local phone company.
Should they be concerned that my local phone company is competing with them?
Well, yeah, it's a matter of concern, but I don't think it's something that...
They shouldn't have to be forced to use anybody.
CompuServe should be able to run a line to your home if they want to do it as well.
With personal ISDN and all, it's going to be conceivable that they could do that, that
anybody could do that.
One last question.
Right.
The phone I am holding now says on its Bell system property, up for sale.
Not for reason.
Right.
Does that mean anything in this day and age?
Well, it means either you have an old phone.
Is it an old phone?
Yeah, it's pretty old.
One of those heavy ones?
It's a push button, but it's been around for a while.
Well, I mean, you can certainly sell it now.
I don't think anybody's going to stand in your way, unless you're one of those poor
unfortunates that still leases a phone from AT&T.
Are you one of those?
No, I'm not.
Then you don't have anything to worry about.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for calling.
Actually, he might have something to worry about, but not that.
279-3400.
Good evening.
Yes.
Hello.
How are you doing?
Is this off the hook?
Is this what?
Off the hook?
Yes, it's off the hook.
Oh, hi.
First time I'm able to get through.
I really...
That's because we expanded the call-in section tonight.
Yes, I really love your program.
Well, thanks.
I enjoy it a lot.
I think the information you're providing is really, really important.
I also like your up-the-establishment kind of attitude, and I think that that's real
necessary, too.
Well, that kind of attitude is the only thing that gets you through dark days sometimes.
I do have a question.
Hello?
Go ahead.
Okay.
I'm in New Jersey, and oftentimes, I do try to call WBAI.
In fact, it just happened today, also.
And I've been trying to reach out to WBAI.
How do I use AT&T?
How do you mean default?
Yeah, I believe so.
Because that's my long-distance company.
That was 10288, then 1212.
If you wanted to try and you didn't have MCI, you would dial 10222.
And if you wanted to do Sprint, it would be 10333.
And there's a bunch of others as well.
And then if you can try reaching us sometime before 10, let us know what happened.
And we might have an answer to this puzzle.
Yes, yes, there might very well be.
And if you get the same result on all the ones that you try,
then I would say it's within our switch, which is very bad news.
But if that's true, then I'm sure everybody calling us now will experience the same thing.
So I don't think that's really the case.
Okay?
Well, why don't you try that?
If you can try calling us at 3407 now and letting it ring a bunch of times.
And then once you have the results of your test, call us back and let us know what you found out.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you. Good night.
And that's one of many ongoing experiments that will be taking place tonight.
279-3400.
Good evening.
Yes, hi, Emanuel.
My question concerns 800 numbers.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, I know they have automatic identification on all 800 numbers.
That's correct, yes.
Okay.
And many years ago on BAI, one of the late-night political shows,
guys were talking about people, activists,
who were calling up 800 numbers of right-wing people and people like Jerry Falwell
and costing them whatever it was.
I don't know if it was 25 or 50 cents for an 800 call.
It varies?
It varies, depending on time, where you are in the country, that kind of thing.
I should also clarify, that's not the case with all 800 numbers,
but an increasing majority of them.
That what? That have automatic identification or that are 25 cents?
No, there are some that can read your number right away
or at least show it to you on a bill,
but depending on where the call is coming from,
some places do not yet generate the number,
so you'll get just a series of Xs where the phone number would be.
Oh, so they don't all read the number?
Well, it depends mostly on where you're calling from.
Okay, my question is this, okay?
About two years ago, I had harassing phone calls
where the phone company did put one of these devices on to try to catch a person,
but the person never called it home and never spoke.
It would always be from a pay phone,
so they basically told us they can never catch somebody like that, okay?
And that I would have to pay the $50 service fee for changing my number.
No, that's crazy.
You don't have to pay anything if you're getting harassing phone calls
and you want to change your number.
That's phone company policy.
That's what I told the woman who spoke to me,
and she said, you'll have to pay the $50.
Well, then...
And I did not know, last week or two weeks ago,
you mentioned, I didn't know that technique you said
you can use a phony name to not have to pay the $2 fee for having an unlisted number.
Right, you can use any name you want,
and if people don't know what name to look for you under,
they obviously can't find you.
Exactly, I've been paying the extra $2 a month for holding an unpublished number.
Now, my question then comes to this,
since they forced me to pay that $50,
well, when a company,
and I'm not in any way advocating that anybody do this, okay?
But if a company receives all these thousands of 800 numbers
that are costing them up to $0.50 per call,
doesn't the phone company...
My question is, are they always charged?
Or does the phone company see that so many of these phone calls are quick hang-ups,
the person doesn't speak,
they're all coming from the same phone or same area,
and therefore the phone company can monitor these
and know that they won't charge the company.
That's my question.
I'm not sure I understand.
Now, you're saying when a company is called, are you...
A company is called by some harasser or whatever.
Right.
Anybody is called who has an 800 phone number.
Right.
The harasser wanting to cost the company or person money, okay?
My point is, will they be charged?
If somebody called up some big company with an 800 number thousands of times,
okay, will that company definitely be charged for those phone calls?
Or will the phone company see that these are harassing phone calls and not charge them?
No.
That's my question.
The phone company will never step in and say,
hey, these don't look like nice phone calls and not charge you.
They'll charge you and they'll wait for you.
The onus is on the customer to come forward and say, these are harassing phone calls.
Now, the situation that happened to you, was that to an 800 number?
No, no, no.
That had nothing to do with an 800 number, but I just put it together.
Being at the phone company didn't.
I asked him.
I wanted to speak to a supervisor.
This is ridiculous.
Why should I be responsible for paying when somebody harasses me?
Why should I pay?
If you guys are unable to catch him, you should pay for the changing of the number,
changing of the number, okay?
The same thing happens on the same argument.
And therefore, I realized, can the same thing apply to 800 numbers?
It didn't happen to me.
I don't own an 800 number.
Well, you see, with 800 numbers, it's easier for you to do the work yourself
because on most 800 numbers, you will receive an itemization of the numbers that call you.
Right, but what happens if the person is just calling?
I mean, unless the person is stupid enough to call from their home, right?
Plus, even if they did occasionally, well, I guess if they called even once from their home,
some name would show up.
Uh-huh.
You know, my point is when—
Everybody gets sloppy at some point.
You know, for somebody to go out to a different pay phone each and every time they want to harass you,
it takes a lot of thinking behind that.
And eventually, they're going to become lazy and call from a residence or somebody that knows them
or at least from an area that they frequent.
Right.
Well, these guys, some of them were activists.
One of them, they said one of them got caught for calling Jerry Falwell's number
thousands and thousands of times.
I think he said his modem to automate his demon dialer, they said.
Right.
He constantly called from his home.
Right.
And he was caught and arrested and I believe convicted.
I'm not sure.
Yeah.
You may know more about that.
His demon dialer was sent up the creek, too.
But—
Right.
So you're saying that the chances are if some harasser calls a company's 800-phone number from a pay phone
that that company will have to pay for those numbers.
No, I didn't say they'd have to pay, but I did say that the onus would be on them to say that this call
is of a harassing nature and they can take it up with the company then.
See, every company is different.
There's many companies providing 800 numbers now.
Oh.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
There are all kinds, all different rates.
In fact, if you call somebody and hang up on an 800 number, odds are it's not going to cost any more than 5 cents anyway.
Oh, because—
It's not like you really do.
Oh, it's not an automatic 25-cent minimum fee?
Well, it depends on the company.
It depends on the deal they have, you see.
But you're saying the odds are it's purely by time.
And you're saying in many cases if it's a quick hang-up, it's—
Well, I have one of my 800 numbers set to go to a beeper of mine.
People call it to beep me, and I get my phone bill, and there's no call on there that costs more than 8 cents.
I see.
Because it's about 30 seconds long.
Yeah, the maximum amount of time is 30 seconds, and 8 cents is what they charge, and it's a fairly good deal.
Right.
Although, but if somebody set their demon dialer on it to call—
Uh-huh.
It could add up, and it would still be an unnecessary expense.
That's true, too.
Right, and the phone company may—that's the point.
If you brought it to the phone company, if you obviously showed them a list of thousands of consecutive phone calls, real quick ones,
they could easily see that this is a harasser.
Right.
Right, that's right.
Once they see that list, will they take you—will they now disallow those phone calls and not charge you?
Well, it's either that or risk losing you as a customer.
That's right.
So they're going to have to do something, and I would bet that they would.
Right.
Okay, thanks very much.
You have the most fascinating show I have ever heard.
Aw, shucks.
Well, thanks for calling.
Thank you.
All right.
Gosh, I get so embarrassed when people say that.
279-3400.
The program is Off the Hook, talking about telephone technology, computers, privacy, consumer issues,
and whatever else is on your mind on this special listener feedback edition.
Good evening.
Good evening.
I'll go ahead.
Okay.
You were talking a couple of weeks ago about caller ID.
Yeah, a couple of weeks ago we were talking about that.
That's true.
Yes.
I'm looking at an ad that's in Security Dealer, and it says,
Introducing National 911 Service to Alarm Monitoring.
We know your phone number before we answer the phone.
And they say, We dare you to call us.
Really?
Yeah.
And is it an 800 number?
It is an 800 number.
Well, of course.
I mean, that's how.
I can get around that very easily.
Would you like to give us the 800 number?
Sure.
It's 800-282-0911.
282-0911.
Yeah.
And are they open 24 hours?
Well, they're emergency 24.
They're 24-hour monitoring, so I imagine they are.
Okay.
282-0911.
Let's give that.
I wish I had a pen so I could write that down.
Is there anything else you wanted to say?
Well, you can get around it if you dial the operator first.
That's what I was going to do.
Okay.
Yeah.
If you go through the operator, you will get around it.
Now, are they offering some kind of prize if you do that?
No.
They just get a little confused when your number doesn't come up.
What happens when you do call through and your number does show up?
Well, you can ask them, and they'll tell you what your number is.
Basically, it's their ad to promote their service.
Is it a machine or is it a human that answers?
It's a human that answers.
Really?
Yeah.
Okay.
Very interesting.
If you want to find out what number you're calling from, 800-282-0911,
they'll be happy to tell you that information.
Yeah.
That's good.
Where did you see that at again?
That's in Security Dealer, the October issue.
Security Dealer.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll try to look out for that.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you.
279-3400.
That's the kind of information that we need to hear about.
Good evening.
Are you there?
Is anyone there?
Hello?
Yeah, go ahead.
Yes.
I wanted to get an idea of what the best deal in service would be for an ordinary homeowner.
Yeah?
Yeah.
And as to I'm going to be using the phone a lot more than I expected.
Also, I passed by TouchTone service, and I had heard that you could reverse red and green wires to do that,
and that seems to have been defeated.
Well, probably in an electronic area, in which case that no longer works.
Now, I'm not sure what your exact question is again.
Well, what's the best sort of service to get?
At one point you mentioned that having two lines was cheaper than having call waiting.
Yeah, that is true.
Now, you are going to have what?
Are you running a business?
How's it working?
It's basically a summer home that I use very little,
although I may be making a business out of calling for a market research firm from the home.
I take care of that bill, so it's not of any concern.
Right.
Are you in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut?
Upstate New York.
New York.
I can't say 100% for sure if the rules are the same up there as they are down here.
It's 9X.
Okay, it's 9X. It's probably the same then.
First of all, you don't have to worry about running a business from that line.
You can do that as long as you are running it from a home. That's not a problem.
Right.
Now, if you want to have two lines, yes, it would be cheaper.
Rather than get call waiting and then three-way,
get a two-line phone that you can push down both buttons at the same time,
and there you have your conferencing for free,
and also get a service that doesn't cost anything called call hunting,
which allows you to have a call go from one line to the next if the first line is busy.
In other words, if you're talking to me on line one now,
and somebody calls you, it will ring on line two.
Unlike call waiting, you won't have to drop everything and pick up that phone
because you can have that phone ring and go to a machine,
or you can just ignore it or do whatever you want to do to it,
or you can put me on hold and pick up the other line.
You know, the options are almost unlimited.
What phone would be, or what brand would be a good phone to try to get for that two-line quality?
There's a lot of two-line phones out there.
Panasonic is good as far as the conferencing feature,
but their mouthpieces are terrible.
It's very hard to hear people on them.
I'd shop around a little bit on that.
I can't say I found the best one yet, but look around and you'll find something.
Especially in New York City, there should be a lot of two-line phones.
Any ideas on what's a good answering machine to get?
I think Panasonic is probably the best answering machine overall,
and I'd suggest getting one without a phone attached for the reasons I mentioned as far as the mouthpiece.
I think as far as security, they're probably the most secure as well.
If somebody can correct me on that, I'd like to hear it.
As far as the identity code for calling back, they have more numbers or something like that?
Yeah, they have more numbers and it's more easily changed.
You know, some answering machines don't even allow you to change all the numbers, which is crazy,
because once somebody figures it out, you might as well throw the machine out because you can't do anything about it.
So you have to be careful not to get in that kind of situation.
I saw something that intrigued me. It was a fax machine that worked as a copier for 388 consumers.
They said that it's cheaper if you go to a bargain place in the city.
Well, it's usually cheaper if you do mail order, but that's something else.
You usually do your shopping and then you find it in mail order somehow and get it that way.
Do you think it's likely that it would work as a real worthwhile copier as well as a fax machine,
or do you think they're incompatible purposes?
I don't think it would make a very good copier, no.
It would probably be very slow and probably the quality wouldn't be very good.
You can get a fax machine for, you know, a good one for about $150, I believe.
Good for that. Boy, that is cheap. Do you have any models or places where they might sell something like that?
I've seen Ricos for sale for that little, but you've got to walk the streets a bit to find it.
But you can if you look around.
Okay, I have a suggestion for you.
Maybe you could come up with some sort of tip sheet as to the services for phone companies,
you know, given a set of criteria of ordinary phone users, you know, your home phone,
your home phone with teenage daughter, and what sort of service you should get
and possibly save people some money and also clue into when there's a rate change
and people can change their phone services without getting charged extra fees.
Right. I believe it's 90 days within a rate change you can change your service.
I don't know how many different kinds of services you have up there, though.
You see, things differ radically.
For instance, New York City, you have to pay for every call regardless of what kind of service you have.
On Long Island, that's not the case. You know, it's completely different.
Well, I'm clearly in the position where I'd be calling distances.
As a matter of fact, I have a problem where I call over the local area ladder network, I think they call it,
where somewhere in mid-Dutchess County, which is about 15 miles from where I am,
is out of that area and a call to, you know, Poughkeepsie, let's say, which is north of,
I think it's an I-84 is the demarcation line rather than the Dutchess-Putnam border,
costs me much more than it would be to call California.
It's virtually a dollar a minute for the first minute and a lot after that.
Uh-huh. That's a lot of times the case.
Calls within New York State are more expensive than cross-country calls.
Would a different long-distance carrier help rather than having AT&T?
Well, it might help for local calls if you keep them fairly short.
For instance, if you place a 9-5-0 call and come back into New York and speak for a couple of minutes,
it certainly would be cheaper than if you used New York Telephone, yes.
So there's some advantages to that.
But if you stay on for an hour, it probably would even out eventually.
OK, well, 9-5-0 would be addressing a different phone carrier rather than...
Yeah, that would be addressing a different long-distance company using an authorization code.
You can ask your long-distance company if they provide that service.
They're kind of shying away from it now, at least without surcharges, and that's a real shame.
I think people should be calling Sprint and MCI and demanding that they have 9-5-0 service as frequently as possible.
There's nothing more convenient, say, when you're at a pay phone and you need to call somebody.
Rather than drop all this money into a phone, you simply bill it to a calling card, and you don't pay a surcharge.
Why should you pay a surcharge for something that isn't good for anything else?
I mean, a calling card is a calling card.
You can't use it to buy anything else.
It's only used for making phone calls.
So why should there be a surcharge on making phone calls?
It doesn't make any sense to me.
I got charged a tremendous amount calling the next town over.
Using a calling card from a pay phone was like $1.50 for a $0.40 call.
Sounds like you got a co-cot there.
A what?
A customer-owned, coin-operated telephone.
Actually, probably an alternate operator service, AOS.
It looks like a regular pay phone, looks like a regular long-distance company, but it's not.
And they take your calling card number, but they charge you many times the rate that you should be charged.
I was fairly sure that it was a 9X phone that did this.
It could be a 9X phone, too.
But if you look on every 9X phone, there's two long-distance companies on there.
One is for OnePlus.
And right now, all of the OnePlus long-distance is handled by AT&T.
Eventually, that will change.
But ZeroPlus can be any phone company.
It could be National Telephone Service.
It could be all kinds of rip-off services.
It could be AT&T.
It could be Sprint.
And they all have different rates, but they will take your calling card number.
And that's where the danger lies.
Because you don't know.
You don't know what company you're using when you key in those numbers.
That's why you should always listen and make sure you've ever heard the name before, for one thing.
That's always a good sign.
Right.
Getting back to my original question as to what the best service is,
With the two-line, you would have one that fits your real needs,
as you can determine them with, you know, untimed local calls,
if you do a lot of local calls, and then no local calls if you don't do a lot,
and then just go for a flat rate on that.
Well, you're going to have to have the same kind of service on both lines.
That's something they do require.
I'm pretty sure they require it up there as well.
Okay.
I guess they're not stupid at any rate.
No, they're definitely not stupid.
But it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what kind of service is best for you.
Ours are something, if you make a lot of local calls,
then you should have something that allows you unlimited access to a certain small exchange.
Right.
In any event.
I find that those exchanges are very small.
I tried using a computer network,
and even from the time I was living in Yonkers and to White Plains,
I didn't believe that it was within the local calling area,
so instead of getting charged just by the CompuServe,
I got hit by AT&T also, and it ran up the bill another, you know, almost double in many cases.
Well, if you got hit by AT&T, it definitely wasn't local.
That's a long distance.
From 9X, you know, that was out of the local calling area.
Well, that's something you got to check beforehand.
For instance, I changed my service from the unlimited local calling
to a service where I pay for every local call,
but it's untimed for a bigger area,
so that allows me to do what I'm doing right now.
Right now, I've been on the phone now for well over 24 hours
downloading 10 megabytes of information from Australia.
Okay, using the Internet, it's free,
but because I'm using a telephone where I can call a certain exchange
for something like 10.5 cents,
that's all I'm paying for the phone call no matter how long I stay on,
and that's worthwhile.
Is that the service that you're subscribing to that you referred to?
Well, that's a regular New York telephone service
where you have a certain area, you pay for every call to that area,
but it's not timed.
But that's expanded over the local...
Yeah, it's a bigger area than if you have unlimited local calling at no charge,
but keep in mind, when you have unlimited local calling at no charge,
you have to pay a fee for that, so you really are paying.
Nothing is free in phone company lingo.
Unfortunately, I had service hooked up here,
came out a week...
It was a week ago that it was connected,
and I had terrible time even getting an appointment,
and then didn't have any way of getting the current rates from them
except them offering to mail me a phone book
because I had an old phone book with them.
I was thinking of fudging around and at least asking,
saying that I had wanted the TouchTone service
since I can't hook that up myself.
As far as the TouchTone service,
now, they do want to charge you for that.
Hopefully, that will go away within a couple of years.
But the best way around that right now
is don't pay for TouchTone service.
If you live in an electronic system,
electronic system like an ESS or a DMS-100 or something like that,
the best way to get around that is to get one of those phones
where you have a switch, an easy-to-reach switch,
not one where you have to lift the phone up and turn it upside down,
one where you can just easily switch from tone to pulse.
That way, you're hitting the same buttons.
It's a little bit slower, but you're saving
what amounts to a significant amount
considering you're paying for absolutely nothing
if you do pay that amount.
It's a good deal, I think.
Okay?
Okay, thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling.
Actually, there's another way of doing that
on one of those smartphones,
the phones with all the speed-dialing buttons on them.
I figured this out not too long ago
where you assign every speed-dial button a single touchtone.
Let's say you have five buttons going down on the left side
and five buttons going down on the right side.
Well, you make the upper left-hand button a touchtone 1.
You make the second one a touchtone 2,
then a touchtone 3, etc.
You just assign them those numbers.
That way, you have two keypads on your telephone.
You have the pulse keypad,
and then you have the touchtone keypad.
So you don't even have to switch buttons.
You just have to press either a touchtone or a pulse,
depending on where you are.
If you've connected to another long-distance service
or banking by phone or whatever,
and you need touchtones,
you don't have to find a switch on your phone.
That's one way to get around the touchtone fee.
Good evening.
Hello.
How are you doing?
I'm fine.
Is this Mr. Goldstein?
Yes, it is.
Hi.
Am I on the air now?
Yes, you are.
Okay.
We are in...
It's not a problem,
but a curious situation with our telephone.
New Jersey Bail has told us that the problem is
with the key system,
the box in the basement or something like this,
and the telephone box has told us that it's in our unit.
This is a business, right?
We run a business from home,
and there's a telephone that sits on my desk
where I sit all day long.
It has two lines coming into it
with lights that show which line is in operation
and a hold button.
Many times late at night, after midnight,
those lights come on inexplicably
when the phone doesn't ring,
and sometimes they come on in quick blinking sequences
and sometimes slow blinking sequences,
sometimes one line, sometimes both lines.
It's a very curious situation,
and I just would like to have your comments on that.
Well, have you ever tried picking it up?
Yes, and there's a dial tone.
Okay, what I would suspect is happening
is that your phone company is doing some kind of a test.
This happened to me only a couple of days ago
where my entire central office went down.
You couldn't place a call in or out of it,
so finally I was able to hobble over to Repair Service
and report the problem to them,
and I said to them,
Look, there's nothing wrong with my phone.
This is affecting every phone in the neighborhood.
Please just take this information and fix it somehow.
But, of course, they don't know how to proceed
without taking down your phone number.
There's no way they can report a problem
if they don't have a phone number,
so I had to give them my phone number,
and I said, Look, please don't send anybody out.
There's nothing wrong with my phone.
Just fix the problem with the entire neighborhood.
So I hung up my phone, and sure enough,
a few seconds later I saw the light come on
to that phone line,
which meant that they were testing my phone line.
I see.
Now, what I suggest you do,
what's your number for Repair Service out there?
Uh, well, I'd have to look it up.
I first went directly through the operator
because it happened very late at night.
Uh-huh.
And, um...
Well, I would bet...
Maybe a 611 number, I believe.
Okay, I would bet if you call 611...
Right.
...and just say that you're having
some kind of problem with your line, okay?
Well, that's the first step I took.
Okay, as soon as you hang up,
probably as soon as you hang up,
maybe while you're still on the line,
they will test your line,
and if the line is hung up when they do that,
the light will go on,
so you can maybe compare that
to what you see late at night.
It's also possible
you might have some other kind of service.
I've heard of several cases
where water companies throughout the nation
are checking their meters over the phone lines.
They're not actually making phone calls to you,
but they're sort of reaching out
and getting information
by just accessing your house for a brief second.
Do these things happen about the same time every night?
Uh, well, actually,
because the phone's on my desk
and I work at my desk all day long,
I face the phone almost all day.
I've never seen it happen during the day, ever.
Uh-huh.
But I have seen it happen any number of times,
and it's always after midnight.
It's always after midnight.
Sounds like some kind of a test of some sort,
and since you pick up the phone and nobody's there,
nobody else is accessing your line,
somehow something is being sent down the line.
Why would New Jersey Bell be reluctant to tell me that?
Probably because they don't know.
Probably because the person you're talking to
has no conception of, you know,
what you're referring to
and just thinks that, you know,
you're a crank or something
and doesn't want to even deal with it.
Right.
And then also, after my initial call,
I received two follow-up calls.
Uh-huh.
People asked, uh,
people from New Jersey Bell asking me
if I was satisfied with the way my call had been handled,
and basically I told both of them no
because it didn't seem to answer the question.
Right.
And that was the end of it.
Uh-huh.
They never called back again.
What I suggest you do is write down when this happens
and see if you can see any kind of a pattern to it.
And then, if you do see a pattern to it,
I would approach the, uh,
find out where your central office is.
Okay.
And that's kind of tough sometimes
because they won't really tell you where that is.
But once you do find out where it is
and you're able to talk to somebody, perhaps,
that has some technical knowledge inside,
they may be able to say,
yes, every Tuesday at 2 a.m. we do diagnostics
and that might make your light go on on the telephone.
Another thing I suggest doing is getting another kind of a phone,
in other words, one that doesn't necessarily need a key system to operate.
Right.
And just plugging it directly into the interface.
But it has to have one of those lights that gets turned on
whenever you pick up the phone.
Right.
See if the same thing happens to that kind of a phone as well.
In other words, eliminate the key system as the cause.
Right.
Now, what you're saying,
what you're saying would be accurate
even if both lines come on and off alternately
in different paces, at different paces.
It's not just one line that's being accessed.
Right.
Sometimes one line will come on and stay on and then go off,
and then sometimes they will alternate,
one line, then the next line, then the first line,
the second line, first line, second line,
in alternating frequencies.
Sometimes they come on and off at a very fast clip,
and at other times they come on at a slower pace.
Uh-huh.
And then sometimes it's just one line,
sometimes it's just the other line.
It sounds like somebody is doing tests on different kinds of lines.
Another good thing to do would be to,
you know what you should do?
Try this.
If you can get your technical person to do this,
when you see one of the lines go on,
Right.
reverse the lines and see if it moves to the other line,
or if it stays on the one where it was lit.
That way you'll know if it's your key system right away
or if it's actually the phone company.
Okay.
Now, this doesn't indicate that anyone is playing around with our telephone,
does it?
Well, I mean, not...
In an invasion of privacy type manner?
I can't say for sure, but it doesn't appear that way.
It doesn't appear that way to me.
This could be some kind of data of some sort being sent down the line,
but I really don't know why or how.
I don't know what you guys have over there.
Well, it's just a very ordinary, simple, very simple system.
It's just basically two telephones.
Mine is the only one in the office that has two lines coming in on it, actually.
One is basically a private line and the other is a business line.
Do you have other extensions on those same phones?
Only one.
Do they have lights the same way as your phone has lights?
Mine's the only phone that has lights.
Okay.
If you could get a second phone that had lights,
you'd be able to have some more conclusions.
Right.
Like you'd say, you know, it's definitely not this system, it's the line.
Right.
And you mean other phone units on these same lines?
Right, exactly.
But try switching them.
Try switching the two lines.
If you see a line, go on, switch line one to line two, line two to line one,
and see if the lit up line moves to the line you switched it to.
Okay.
Okay.
That's what I would do.
Okay, thank you very much.
Okay, thanks for calling.
Nothing like a mystery, huh?
Good evening.
Good evening, Emanuel.
How are you doing?
You have a great show.
Thank you.
Here comes some more fun from New Jersey.
Okay, what's that?
Okay, I manage a small business in New Jersey,
and I've had a run-in with directory assistants just today, as a matter of fact.
A run-in with directory assistants?
That sounds pretty scary.
Yeah, it's sort of a reverse invasion of privacy
in that I can keep my number away from all of my customers
with doing business with New Jersey Bell.
Customers come into my place regularly
and tell me that they can't find our number through directory assistants.
Really?
Yes, and someone in our business had apparently taken care of the problem,
but it was never really taken care of, and today was the last straw.
So I decided to call directory assistants, and our business name is Two Initials.
Okay.
Okay, I called directory assistants and gave them the name of the company.
They tried the number.
They couldn't get the name.
Rather, they couldn't get the number.
I said, would you put a hyphen in there?
We tried a hyphen, he said.
I said, well, what's the problem?
He said that apparently the computer had so many names
with our two initials in the beginning of it
that it was busy scrolling through these and couldn't choose one,
and that was the reason why our number couldn't get through,
that he couldn't give the number to our customers.
And I thought that was kind of odd.
After checking the directory myself,
I found that we were the only company in the area
with these two initials as the beginning of our name.
So I called the business office and told them of my dilemma,
and what they told me was that for an additional charge each month,
I can have my listing changed,
and that would be the only way around this problem.
You mean your company name changed?
Well, we would have to change a certain aspect of it,
and it would cost us a certain amount of money per month
in addition to what we already charge, or already are charged, rather.
So I thought that was rather peculiar,
and I'm wondering about this.
It is kind of odd.
His answer was rather cryptic,
with the computer scrolling through the names
and our name being so similar to other names that don't even exist.
Well, I mean, if somebody gives the full name of your company,
will they get the number, yes or no?
Well, our company is only known by its two initials,
and it would be blank blank company.
That's how it's been known for 45 years,
but apparently this is only a recent phenomenon,
as long as I've worked there anyway.
Well, now, you should be able to obtain from your phone book
a list of everything in your town that has those two initials.
Which I have, and there is only one company in this area,
other than us, that has the same two initials.
Then there's no reason why they should be able to handle that.
Absolutely.
Especially if you say it's a business.
They ask you is it a business or a residence,
they can tell the difference.
Now, you're paying for a business line, are you not?
Obviously, yes.
You pay extra for that, you have a yellow page listing.
Right.
There's no reason why you should have to put up with an app service like that.
But go straight to the top.
Tell them, you know, you're not going to put up with this.
They're the phone company.
They're in charge of giving out your phone number when people ask for it.
And, you know, you should not take no for an answer.
With regard to the computer answer that I received
from the directory assistance operator,
did you think that was a crank or do you find is there some validity in that?
I mean, he claimed that the computer was just rolling through.
Well, let me tell you, when I talk to a directory assistance operator,
I usually get a different answer no matter what question I ask.
You know, they say, oh, you know, the computer is down,
the computer is slow, the computer is wrong.
There's always something different.
If you call somebody else right afterwards,
you'll get a completely different response.
So, you know, for them, maybe that's the answer.
But they're not the people in the position to make decisions
or to change software or that kind of thing.
Right.
If it's a fault in the system, they're responsible for that.
Otherwise, there's no reason why you should have to pay these outlandish fees to them.
That's what you're paying them for so that they'll provide a service for you.
And it is a ridiculously low fee.
It's $1.04 per month.
And I think that...
For a business line?
What I'm saying is for the additional charge.
The additional charge.
I would not consider an additional charge to fix one of their mistakes.
Of course not.
No, but what I'm saying is there might be other people who would be duped by that.
Oh, sure.
Substantially.
Just like the wire maintenance fee and the touch-tone fee
and all the other things that they throw our way.
But I think if you have an instinct about these things,
you'll know that it's not the answer to a problem.
And I doubt it would even solve the problem, to be honest.
Of course not.
Well, again, you have a great show.
Thanks.
Let us know how that turns out, though,
because that's something I'm sure affects a lot of people.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
I mean, I imagine AT&T probably has the same initials as other companies.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Emmanuel?
Yes.
Yes.
Great program.
Thank you.
I'm very interested in your discussion or the part about computer connections
into foreign countries.
And how do we link up with user net and Internet?
Which is the cheapest?
And is it possible to use this, let's say, in the United States,
if I wanted to call Buffalo?
Well, by call, you don't mean carry on a voice conversation, do you?
Because this is primarily a data system.
You can send mail back and forth to people.
Okay.
But how would I link up with user net?
Okay.
User net is what you're talking about.
And that's basically a bunch of news groups.
For instance, there's a news group on, say, Star Trek or something,
something that people talk about, something that people are into.
And you call on your particular system and you post a message to this news group.
Your message gets added to the news group and distributed all over the world
and mailed to different computer systems,
and they all have your message on it at some point.
It doesn't all appear in the same order.
That's pretty much what user net does.
Internet is a lot more sophisticated.
Internet allows you to actually have real-time conversations
with people in other parts of the world.
It allows you to mail things instantly, transfer huge files, that kind of thing.
How does one link up with internet?
Well, there's a couple of ways.
One is through the military.
The military certainly uses internet a lot.
Various corporations use internet.
And schools.
Schools use internet.
And it's very inexpensive, even free, for students to use internet
if they are registered in a particular program.
A lot of people have internet accounts.
They don't even know it.
So if you go to a school, if you're a student someplace,
you should see if you have an internet account or if you can get one.
If you can get one, it's well worth learning about.
In fact, I would suggest even taking a course at a school
just to get the internet account because you'll learn so much from it.
And just being able to play around and communicate with other people
and have an internet mailbox that anybody around the world
who has internet access can mail to you
without having to pay a monthly fee or an hourly fee
like all these other commercial services have.
You'll just be getting so much technical knowledge.
You'll also be getting so much of a feeling for what computers can do.
And I think rather than scare people off by charging them $100 an hour
or something to access something,
give them all the access they want for nothing.
Let them play around with it and learn and grow with it.
And fortunately, this is one of the few things that is actually paid for
by government grants.
One of the few things that Reagan didn't find necessary to cut.
With the advancement of technology, you have now the ability
to download pictures and even voice communications through the computer.
So you could make a larger file but download it in a very short time
if your baud rate is going up faster and faster.
That's right.
For instance, what I did last night was I was able to access my local system,
my local internet account, then use a program called FTP,
which is File Transfer Protocol.
It allows you to copy files from one internet system to another.
I accessed a system in Australia.
I was able to copy about 10 megabytes worth of files in a few minutes
over to one system.
And now I'm downloading them to my local system over the phone line.
I'm still on the same phone call.
And it's costing about 10 cents to do that.
I see.
So you are really, in essence, like a sub-directory of a main directory
which is being downloaded.
Well, it's a bunch of files that were on one system,
they've been copied to another,
and now they're being downloaded over the phone lines.
Right.
And that's how the internet works.
You can transfer things left and right.
You can communicate with people.
Because of the baud rate and its speed, it's a very small cost.
Well, it depends how you do it.
I mean, if you call up Australia and download it at 300 baud,
of course it's going to be very expensive.
But if you take advantage of technology and the advances that it has made,
it won't cost you barely anything.
Well, let's say I didn't use internet.
Let's say I just connected with England or Europe
or wherever I wanted to connect, Australia.
Right.
And I have a modem which runs at, let's say, 9600 baud,
which is, I think, my standard modem.
How long would it take
and what would be the minimum charge for the phone call, correct?
Well, let's put it this way.
I'm downloading at 2400 baud now.
It's going to take over 24 hours.
So 9600 is four times as fast.
The minimum it would take you would be six hours.
So a six-hour call to Australia at any time of the day
is going to be a sight to behold.
Let's put it that way.
Well, unbelievable.
That would be an incredible amount of money.
It would be, but there's other ways of doing it.
There's other ways of doing just about everything these days.
And they're not illegal.
They're not something that is breaking any kind of law or anything like that.
It's services available.
Right, technology is changing,
but are we really seeing the benefits of it?
We can if we look for it.
If we go out there and play around with it
and figure out what the best system is to use
and how we can do things faster.
You can make a phone call for 10 cents
and get 10 megabytes worth of information on it, yes.
But if you don't change with the times, you'll spend a lot of money.
And, of course, nobody's going to really go out there
and tell you not to spend a lot of money.
I see.
Just one other thing.
Whenever I call long distance and I don't get through,
they charge me for the connection.
I see it on the bill.
Then change your company because they should not be doing that.
What company is that?
AT&T.
AT&T does that?
Yeah.
They should not be doing that.
What kind of a number are you calling?
Buffalo.
Is it a regular phone number?
It's in a college, U of B.
It might be the college is kicking in supervision
whenever you access their ringing, which is bad.
You should report that to AT&T and say there's an error here.
Keep track of all the calls you make there.
If it's that, then no phone company is going to let you go on that.
Yeah, but there shouldn't be a charge for a non-connection.
Is that correct?
Of course not.
There shouldn't be, but that doesn't prevent some technical problems.
What if the company is trying to charge you?
I don't know if they're trying to charge you so much
or if it's just some kind of a technical glitch
that makes all the phone companies think that they've picked up
when in actuality they haven't since it's all to the same.
Yeah, but it's all like .45 cents, .35 cents.
It doesn't matter.
You shouldn't be charged anything
because once they sneak in the rules where they can charge you
for uncompleted calls, pretty soon it will become policy,
and we have to make sure that doesn't happen.
I see.
Okay?
Okay, thank you.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
Let's see if we can squeeze in one or two more.
Good evening.
Hi, Emanuel?
Yeah, go ahead.
Hi, I have a question about the 950 numbers.
Yeah?
Dialing access lines to use the long-distance calls for local calls.
Right.
And they gave me the number, they gave me their off code,
but they said it no longer works,
and the only way they said they'd be able to do it
would be using their phone card, which is their calling card,
which, of course, means there's a, I think,
a 50 or 60-odd cent surcharge on that,
which means that you won't save any money for making the local call.
Well, then drop Sprint.
Use another company that does offer that.
Cable and Wireless, Metro Media, they offer 950 numbers.
Okay, so you can make local calls, then, on those,
with their 950 numbers if you get them?
Yes.
Okay, one other question.
It's not easy to get them, either.
You have to sort of battle them to get them in the first place.
That's something I think the Public Service Commission should be looking at
because 950 is a great service to have.
It's very convenient for people,
and pay phones are just not all that reliable as far as taking money and everything.
Another thing, New York Tele, in terms of the PIN number,
the personal identification number,
used to give the same number as AT&T.
They coordinated them.
They're changing that, so they sent out a letter telling people that
your New York Tele PIN number will remain the same
and your AT&T number will change.
However, because of a computer error,
they're sending out the letters incorrectly
so that I got a letter with the name of two other people on that
who were not living at this address at all.
Right.
And then they sent me today a Western Union priority letter
saying that because of a computer error,
the number may have been printed on both the envelope and its contents,
and they're claiming the other names did not receive any mail
with your confidential calling card information.
Now, the original letter didn't put the PIN number on it,
and I noticed from the two other names that were on there,
one of the people I happened to know,
and I looked up his number in the phone book,
and it was approximately about 100 digits away from mine.
And the other person was an unlisted number,
so I figured what they did is they got the numbers numerically by phone number
of those people that had the New York Tele and the AT&T service
and sent those out, but they formatted it incorrectly.
That sounds...
And this has been going on for several weeks,
and they're continuing to send out this letter.
According to the people at New York Tele, they're very annoyed at this.
So today I got the apology on their Western Union priority letter,
which is just a regular letter for $0.29.
It took two days to get here anyway.
Okay, so we're out of time, but as far as that goes,
don't lose any sleep over it.
Make sure that you don't pay for any calls that you don't make.
Just keep an eye on your phone bill for that.
And that's just about all the time we have for tonight on Off the Hook.
And I want to thank everybody for tuning in this week.
We'll be back again next week with all kinds of other fun bits of information.
Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show here on WBAI-New York.
Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show here on WBAI-New York.
I'm looking out over the city.
The towers, two moons.