PAT: please do NOT display my email address!
Patrick Townson replied to Al Gillis:
> If the telco operators are properly trained, they will either use
> their (at hand) 'flip chart' to look up dialing instructions or
> perhaps they will consult with Rate and Route (which is operated
> for all telcos by AT&T out of Morris, IL [operator would dial
> +815+161] to get details).
> While Zenith and Enterprise are no longer sold to customers,
> they are grandfathered to existing customers who have had the
> services for (obviously) many, many years.
Operators probably don't use flip charts anymore, nor would there
be any further need for specific rate and route operators.
Real telco operators in the US, both Bell and AT&T, are using either
Nortel DMS-based TOPS or Lucent 5ESS-based OSPS computerized systems,
not cord boards nor even TSPS anymore. All routing and rating
information would be available to them straight from a database
accessed from their terminals, thus no further need for flip cards,
multi-leaf bulletins, nor even a dedicated rate and route operator
anymore.
And the code to reach rate and route when it did exist was NOT 161 but
rather 141. When Rate and Route was a regular function, there used to
be numerous rate and route operators, in virtually every major "toll
center" city in the US and Canada. The "local" rate and route operator
was reached by a regular "dial 0" operator with 141, unless the
"local" rate and route operator was in an adjacent toll office or even
area code, where the area code and toll center code would be keyed, if
necessary, followed by the 141 code.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for correcting me.Do you
happen to know or remember what the various 'operator codes' were for
various functions? Such as inward, I think was '121', if your operator
had to reach a 'ring-down' point I think it was '181', and as you
stated above, rate and route was 141. Do you recall all those codes?
PAT]
Mike Z (mike2007xyz@notchur.biz)