}0nf78 {m -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- {m +- {aThe State of the States. {m-+ {m -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- {a Being the nosy bastard I am, I wanted information on the situation with the USA phone companies. Why are there so many of them? where did they come from? What do they think of each other? Read on... Last night, I was pretty pissed up. After running for approx. 1.5 miles uphill, I was pretty fucked. I literally "{ffell{a" into a phonebox. Then I thought, hey, why not have a fuck about whilst I sober up ? To begin with, I just done the usual shit, ringing various 0800's, ringing BT newslines, etc. {e({fEd: {aBT newsline, {e0800 500005 {a[national] ! {e) {a Then as I began to sober up, I got a little more organised, I decided I would find out some information about the various American phone companies. And I did quite well... I was on the phone from Half past midnight to 4AM talking to various customer service people. And I had only rung three companies. (More to come soon ! - next time I get pissed!) First of all, I rung everyone's favourite fascists, AT&T {c American Telegraph and Telephone. - 0800 89 0011 {e ******** ********* *** ********** * **** ** **** {a Apparently, they've been going longer than any of the other companies I rang. They also are the largest telecommunications company in USA and hold the record for the largest amount of fraudulent phone calls. (Grin :-) ) They estimate they lose approximately 1 fifth of their revenue through calling card fraud. AT&T Accept their own calling cards (Obviously) and also, BELL Phonecards, Visa, MasterCard and also, You can use a UNIVERSAL Card too. A universal card is a sort of mix of a Visa & A MasterCard. You can obtain one by calling collect to 904 448 8611. (Ed: For those of you who don't know, a `collect' call is a sort-of internat- ional reverse charge system. AT&T can arrange this for you, simply call them on 0800 89 0011, tone or give them (voice) the number you require and bleep or ask for operator assistance to request call-collect!) AT&T offer other a wide array services (Apparently) Including teleconferencing. They OWN the Alliance system and they probably get quite a lot of money from it. (Ed: Not after Rotox has been using it!) They allow you to ring (From UK) Some 1-800 numbers. Weird. Actually, the previous facts, I got from the next company I rang. Here's the dialogue for the {mAT&T {acall. {e AT & T:{a AT'n'T How may I help you sir? {eME!: {a Er, Hi I'm er.. On vacation in the UK right now, and I have to do this project on communications for college before I get back home. I was wondering if you could give me some information about your company? {e AT & T: {a What kind of information do you mean sir ? {e ME!: {aJust er, General stuff. Example... How long you've been in business, What kind of services you offer, what you have planned for the future. {e AT & T: {aI'm sorry, I can't give any information. ME!: Why not? {e AT & T: {a Look, I'm very busy, Can't you get the information from a library? {e ME!: {aNo. The UK libraries hold nothing on American telecommunications. I've kind of drawn a blank. {e AT & T:{a You've drawn a blank? {e ME!: {a Yuh. {e AT & T:{a Well, I'm sorry I can't help you, Have a nice day. {e ME!: {a Hey, well, Thanks a lot. (Sarcastically) {e AT & T:{a You're welcome. {e ME!:{a Yeah I bet. What a helpful bunch eh? You should have heard me trying to sound American whilst pissed. Really funny! I then felt a bit disheartened so I rung my home fascists British Telecom. {c BRITISH TELECOM CUSTOMER SERVICES - 0800 800800 {e ******* ******* ******** ******** * **** ****** {a The customer service woman here was actually quite helpful, Although she wouldn't tell me anything over the phone, she has sent me a "Pack" which contains all sorts of information. (I'm waiting anxiously!) I asked for information on teleconferencing, modems, 0800, Watts Extensions (Dialouts) and various other shit. Calling cards? They take most major credit cards and BT's own chargecard. --UPDATE-- I have now received a load of leaflets and shit from BT detailing quite a lot of things. Most of the information is either known or of no use (To phreaks!) But some will appear in this publication! I then decided to call another stateside phone company.. {c SPRINT DIRECT - 0800 89 0877 {e ****** ****** * **** ** **** {a The beginning of the conversation was the same as the AT&T call, I was about to hang up when some bloke decided that maybe I should call their customer service line. I did so and got through to a woman called Heather. And she sounded really cool. She gave me loads of information (Most of it is in separate articles or the news section - Look under anything with SPRINT in the title.) I was talking to her for about an hour and I was getting really interested. I lost all interest in phreaking and was trying to compare the various companies such as what they have to offer, which is cheapest etc. She told me that everything started in early 80's when there was just AT&T. Then, basically some of the AT&T dudes thought ... Hey The guys who run this company are a load of wankers who are just out to rip off the public. They realised that the public had no choice BUT to use AT&T. They left AT&T and Apparently, filed a law suit against them for being capitalist scumbags. AT&T thought they would have nothing to worry about and appeared in court. After some time, AT&T lost the law suit and had to pay for the other dudes court costs and also they had to pay out quite a lot of money. With the money, the dudes formed a small telecom company. (I was too pissed to remember the name) then, as the company grew, it changed its name. It's name became.. SPRINT. This was now 1983-1984. A lot of the guys from AT&T saw what happened with Sprint and watched it slowly grow. A lot of AT&T's employees left to work for Sprint. AT&T were plenty pissed at the time. Then, to make it worst, more dudes left and made more phone companies. (Actually, about 3-4 telecom companies were formed this way. No wonder AT&T always sound pissed off when you ring them!! 8-) Nowadays Sprint are still not anywhere near as big as AT&T but they claim they cover one fifth of America's telecommunications. Another thing that's funny is the fact that AT&T and Sprint share lines. For instance, Sprint use AT&T's international lines whereas AT&T use some of Sprint's inland (USA) lines. Weird huh? Sprint's plans for the future look quite promising. They claim to have a videophone that works. Unlike the BT one eh? - BT: Oh yeah er, the monitor is broken that's why its not working. Yeah sure... They plan to increase their Teleconferencing services. Their conferences now are literally, conference rooms! the more callers you have, the bigger the room they need! Hoho! The conferences are supervised (Some dude stays in the room, just listening for swearing etc. (Yeah and I bet stuff like, HACK,PHREAK, e.t.c. !) They plan to have this system totally computerised by 1994. Their prices were reasonable by the sounds of things (Can't remember ;-) It only charges you for the hire of the room. So adding someone in Japan costs the same amount as adding someone in UK Weird huh ? BUT ! Don't think.. hey, a cheap way to call international! because it still costs quite a lot of cash! (I asked her about this possibility!) They also have another system where if for instance, I rung home and I got an engaged tone, I could hang up, ring a sprint number (Not TOLL FREE) and enter the number I was dialling, and leave a message. Then, as soon as the recipient puts the phone down, the Sprint system rings the house and plays back the message. Cool huh ? The person who originated the message collects the charge. I then asked about fraudulent usage of calling cards and how big a problem they think it is. (HEHE :-) She replied.. "Its bigger than we'd like it to be" (oo-er! 8-) But she says that compared to the other companies, their card fraud is minimal. She claimed that AT&T were losing more than any other company. That however she said is reflected by the size of the company. If Sprint had the same number of customers as AT&T, she reckons that card fraud would be the same. (It would ?) I then asked her about how up to date Sprints technology was. She told me that the lines they use are fibre optic. (Crystal Clear!) And that most of their system is entirely computerised. I asked her about security. She replied that she couldn't say much for obvious reasons (Hehe ;-) But they claim that they are extremely advanced. Phone calls can be traced VERY quickly (She wouldn't give me a time) She just said, Look at it this way, we could have your number by now. (Not too difficult because I had been on the line for about half an hour!) They claim to be cutting down possibilities of Card Fraud. And hey, dig this... Say for instance, I ring up and make a call using my Sprint card (Theoretically - I don't actually own one) Then when I get my bill, I say.. Hey. I didn't make this call. They will take it off your bill. They will take your word for it because there is no way that they can prove that you did make that call. Although, I suppose they probably check up by dialling the number and saying.. "Hey, who called you at nn:nn on the day of nn:nn:19nn ? Easy enough I suppose. We talked a little more and then I decided to ring someone else. I thanked her ( Complementing her on being more friendly than AT&T which she liked a hell of a lot! Hoho! ) And hung up. Next up... {c MCI - Micro Wave Communications Incorporated - 0800 89 0222 {e *** * ***** **** ************** ************ * **** ** **** {a Upon connection to these guys, I fed them the usual college story and then they transferred me around a while. Must have cost them a hell of a lot for the connection to the UK for ages! This time I got through to some bloke. They were another spin off from AT&T (Surprise Surprise!) And basically seem to be more or less in the same position as Sprint. The only outstanding difference between these guys and Sprint is the fact that their Conference's can have up to 300 people on one line COOL!!! Bet it gets pretty confusing with 300 phreaks on the line though! Can you imagine some company getting all their employee's on line and some have the same name! Hey John. Yuh,Yeah,Yo,What,etc. ! ! ! {e - TOTAL CONFUZION! - {a I guess it gets pretty noisy too! All those dudes talking. I dunno whether they are supervised. But they are computerised so probably not but this doesn't mean that the computer isn't programmed to pick out NASTY words (Hack,Phreak,Kill the president etc.) Who knows, they may even be recorded too. (Evidence!) I only found out what MCI stood for by ringing back a second time. I forgot to ask about the significance of the Micro Wave. Obviously, it's to do with the way that shit is sent down the phone, but for instance, are they the only company to offer such high quality lines ? I read somewhere that MCI also have a service called a radius which has something to do with international calls from the USA. MCI take Visa, MCI and AT&T cards and claim that their loss through card fraud is not a substantial amount. They claim to making a hell of a lot more than they lose. (Probably right) I then decided that I'd give AT&T another chance. Ha. What a crock of shit. Basically, the same conversation as the first call to them No wonder people want to rip them off if this is their attitude to potential customers ! I'll write another of these articles tomorrow maybe. I'd have to be pretty pissed tonight though because its gonna rain like fuck later !! And I have better things to be doing at 3am (Sleeping for instance) BUT, if you would like to sponsor me to do this shit, send alcoholic beverages/food/money to me and I'll think about it... 8-) I apologise if any of the facts above are inaccurate/vague but I'm only just feeling normal again. Not quite a hangover but I don't feel my usual self ! If you can shed some light on some of the things Ive missed / got wrong, let me know. Finally Here's a quick rundown of some of the stateside phone companies. {f0800 89 0011 - {eAT&T Operator services {f0800 89 0211 - {eAT&T Operator services {f0800 89 0202 - {eMCI Operator. Huh? I'm sure I rung 0222 last night? Jeez, maybe I was too pissed? I'll verify it later maybe. {f0800 89 1852 - {eMCI Operator 0800 89 0877 - Sprint Operator Services {a Next time, I'll do a report on foreign telephone companies such as Germany Sweden etc. l8r0n dudez.