Phones (January, 1987) ---------------------- So few of us really see the possibilities when we look at our telephones. But just think of what's really there, especially today. With a telephone, you can take a trip to anywhere. The average person sees it as an everyday tool, an annoyance, a necessity, nothing to play with, nothing to wonder about, nothing to get excited about. What a pity. But in a way, how much better for folks like us who recognize the beauty of it all. We pick up the phone and we hear a dial tone. The game is afoot. Where are we going? Who are we going to speak to? What exchanges work near us? What area codes work throughout the country? Can we make international calls? How many different operators can we find and what can we make them do? On a phone, there is only one way to be judged. Your voice tells the whole story and if you can do things with your voice, there is no limit to what you can do over a telephone. This column, and in many ways this whole publication, is dedicated to those who have made telephone use into an art form. Ask the average person what they think of the AT&T breakup and you'll hear what a bad idea it was. Ask the average telephone repairman and you'll probably get a 40 minute dissertation. (We should listen to these they can be very revealing.) Ask an elderly person and you may even see some tears. What does this tell us? Did Judge Greene make a mistake? Will making a phone call ever be a simple process again? All of a sudden phone calls are being treated differently as a product instead of a natural right we re all kind of born into. We have to make decisions now where they were made for us before. It's all kind of like racial integration. Some preferred the status quo, but it s obvious the system had to change to even approach being fair. And that means we all have to work a little harder, at least for a while to come. We may not even get it right the first or second time. But it's a change that had to happen. Those of us who understand it all a bit better than others should lend a hand and not assume the answers will show up in the front of the phone book. While the mood here in the States is negative, over in England it's indifference. British Telecommunications PLC was denationalized in late 1984 and; according to a recent survey, 72 percent of those polled think the quality of telephone service hasn't changed since. Another 12 percent thought service had improved, 10 percent thought it had declined, and 6 percent had no opinion whatsoever. Meanwhile, British Telecom has launched a new service for the London area called Talkabout. It enables up to ten telephone callers from the same area to be linked together on the phone for a chat. There are two lines to choose from. Both are available 24 hours a day. One is for adults who dial 0055 0055 to join the service. The other is the service for teenagers up to 18 years, who dial 0055 0033. Callers to the service first hear a recorded message telling them the cost of the call, informing them that all calls are monitored, and for the teenage line advising them to tell their parents that they are calling the service. This message is followed by a tone and customers are then linked in with the other callers. The tone alerts other callers that they have a new member joining their group. So that callers do not lose track of the time, a buzzer sounds every 10 minutes on the adult line to remind people how long they have been connected, and monitors personally interrupt callers on all lines approximately every 10 minutes to remind them of the cost of using the service. In addition, callers to the teenage line are automatically cut off after 10 minutes. We've seen it before; many phone companies in the United States have already given this a try. But the phone phreaks have been doing it the longest, either through teleconferencing or loops. People and companies try making money in the strangest ways. Conferencing is only one. Now there's even competition for what you listen to while on hold! Businesses have begun to program customized advertisements pitching everything from corporate securities to used trucks - for customers who get put on hold. But Robert D. Horner, president of The Hold Co. Inc. of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania says, "We don't like to call it advertising." Can anyone blame him? Meanwhile, W. Evan Sloane of San Diego has started a telephone service that offers advice on how to beat drug testing at the workplace. The two-minute, tape-recorded message provides callers with information on the lengths of time that commonly used, illicit drugs stay in the body and suggests ways to doctor urine samples to mask evidence of drug use. Sloane's a member of a group called Question Authority, which he defines as "an attempt to focus some common sense on what's going on in our lives. The little guy is getting beaten down by this and doesn't know how to defend himself because he assumes these tests are accurate. We believe forcing people to take a urine test to get or keep a job is unwarranted search and is unconstitutional." Not to mention unpleasant. As is the latest move within the Soviet Union to eliminate unlimited local dialing. It's all part of Gorbachev's drive to reduce government subsidies. Soviets currently pay the equivalent of a couple of dollars a month for as many local phone calls as they want. But the party is over. All calls will have to be paid for very soon. The Soviet phone system has its problems. Every call to another city or out of the country must be booked through the operator and it can take hours to get through. Direct dialing was introduced briefly just before the 1980 Olympics, but was then abruptly terminated. It's also next to impossible sometimes to get phone numbers since directories aren't available. You can call directory assistance, but the number is almost always busy. And if you need the number of someone with a common name, you'll be turned away. But things may be looking up for the folks in Yugoslavia. The phone companies of the Slovenian Republic and Ljubljana have ordered the country's first System 12 digital telephone exchange. This will lead to local manufacture of nearly 700,000 lines of System 12 in Yugoslavia over a five-year period. There's a lot going on down those little telephone wires. Telecommunications may indeed be a business for some, but for the entire human race it's becoming a vital link, a taste of freedom. We can never let control slip from our fingers.