Forum Overview :: Tansin A. Darcos's Alter Ego
 
How I ended up getting information from General Telephone of California by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 05/19/2018, 9:47pm PDT
As one of the upgrades to phone service in Long Beach, California in the late 1980s was the switch over to the new ESS switching system by General Telephone (GTE). GTE was an "independent" telephone company, not part of the Bell System, and the California Public Utilites Commission (CPUC) called them the worst phone co. in the country.

Anyway, the new ESS added all sorts of features - many I had seen years ago when I had service with Mountain Bell in Denver - including call waiting, speed deial, and the ability to dial a 10-code when dialing a number to use an alternate long distance company like MCI. So I try the speed dialing, and when I'm trying to program a long distance number into one of the speed dial selections, it will take it okay as 1+area code+number, but keeps faulting when I try to enter 10222+1+area code+number, the code to use MCI instead of AT&T..

So I call 611 and report a problem. After a while I get a return call. Yeah, the problem is there, but they can't fix it, don't know if it will ever be fixed, and can't tell me why it doesn't work, and there is nobody who can tell me or help me. Which kind of pisses me off.

I remembered a provision on the bill which said if you were dissatisfied with service and wanted to file a grievance you could do so by paying your bill to the California Public Utilites Commission instead, explaining the problem, and while the Commission investigated, your service could not be disconnected. So I did.

About two weeks later, I get my check mailed back to me with a letter. Seems that the Commission can not handle service disputes, only billing disputes. However, a day or two after the letter from the CPUC I get a phone call from someone at GTE. Seems they had heard about my complaint to the CPUC. The very nice person explained that the software features in the switch don't provide for inserting an alternative long distance company code in a speed dial number. This might be changed in a future update but for now the system didn't provide it.

And that was all I really wanted to know. So while the CPUC couldn't get me what I wanted, mailing the bill payment to them did.
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How I ended up getting information from General Telephone of California by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 05/19/2018, 9:47pm PDT NEW
 
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