Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!cmcl2!phri!roy From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: touchtone dialing always works Message-ID: <2538@phri.UUCP> Date: Sat, 13-Dec-86 20:41:10 EST Article-I.D.: phri.2538 Posted: Sat Dec 13 20:41:10 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 16-Dec-86 01:01:45 EST References: <750@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU> Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Distribution: na Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) Lines: 28 In <750@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU> wa371@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU (Bernd Riechelmann) writes: > Whenever I order telephone service installed, the phone company asks if I > want to have Touchtone service (for an extra charge.) I have learned to > politely refuse this feature , because Touchtone always works, whether > ordered or not. Last time I moved, we declined to pay for touch-tone and sure enough, our touch-tone phones didn't work ("dialing" a number wouldn't break dial tone). Sometime later, touch-tone started to work. This was the (212)-643-xxxx exchange. A few blocks away, I helped somebody move in who also hadn't ordered touch-tone, and lo and behold, touch-tone phones worked there. In my new apartment (212-636-xxxx), I similarly declined to pay for touch-tone service and sure enough, it doesn't work. I'm hoping that some day it starts to work by itself, but I'm not holding my breath. I am told that if the previous user of a line had touch tone, the phone company generally doesn't bother to remove that service from the line (my current phone is on a brand-new line; new trunk from the building to the CO, anyway). I'm also told that if (when) they take a mechanical switch out and replace it with ESS, every line automatically gets touchtone. I don't know for sure, but that's the word on the street. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 "you can't spell deoxyribonucleic without unix!"