Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 02:11 GMT
From: Brad Allen <0003197242@mcimail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: A Very Strange Experience When Calling LD
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 588, Message 2 of 5

I was playing with my touchtone phone in the 1 415 621 prefix, dialing
the various 00xy numbers to see what I could find, and got lazy and
found 0020 which goes whooooop real loud.  I found the same tone on
other prefixes in the local area (e.g. 882, the voicemail # I have,)
so I wondered if the pitch was the same as the pitch of the tone one
sometimes hears at the transition of long distance telephone calls.  I
decided to do so in glamor, and dialed the shortest possible pulse
phone # I know, in pulse mode, just for the heck of it: 1 212 221
1111, and then it started to ring.  I hit the click button on the
handset to hang up the phone, but I must have hit it not quite long
enough but long enough to evoke a reaction.  What my ears heard from a
distance as I was about to figure out what to do next was beyond
description as I could not believe it, and brought to my eardrum I
realized that it was quite within description, for now I could believe
it, and I had to check to make sure I haven't been taking any drugs
recently or be dreaming.  Well, I am a pretty drug free person, hadn't
defied that statistic recently, and I sure wasn't dreaming.  What was
I hearing?

About, I'd say, 2^3 to 2^5 conversations going on at once!  (Yes, I
think in binary, so I'm sorry.)  It was wild.  I heard phones ringing
(even some international puvvvvvvv--puvvvvvvv type rings,) people
answering the phone in various languages, mostly american english, and
wonderful voices from all over!  It was definately an invasion of
privacy, but since I could make out nothing but a few Hellos? and How
are you doing!s, plus lots of nonenglish language, it was hardly
invading anyone since I don't know them or don't know that I know
them.  The total amplitude of the connection was ever so slightly less
than normal.  T

The quality of the mix of conversations was fairly good -- some were
slightly louder than others, but not by much; usually conversations
just starting (ring, ring, click Hello?) were louder than ones that
had gone on for a while, but I was remarking on the absense of extra
noises or hiss or blips or anything when of course a modem came on
line (it was only on line for about 15 seconds -- presumably a FAX
answering sequence or a quick credit check.)  I heard some automated
recordings, some business secretaries answering the phone, and I was
quite amazed.  I stayed on to be amazed at this wonderful occurrence,
and then I stayed on to try to determine where the voices were
characteristic of.  I could not tell, other than there was a
predominance of non-western, and more blandish eastern-US type voices.

I know very little about the workings of the telephone system, but
correct me if I'm wrong: I think I hit a bug in a digital D-A
converter which decided to pick up conversations from ALL the channels
attached to its multi-channel digit pipe, presumably not really caring
that the D-A converter was giving me this interesting information
because it thought I wasn't really connected or had a bug which
thought that whatever I was doing was appropriate.  Well, it was fun!

Is this an oft occurrence, or did I hit a once in a life time thing?

Quite amazing! Happened just half an hour ago.

Oh, I'm not sure but I think the guy I'm houssitting for has AT&T as
his main carrier.  Actually, something I dialed recently gave me an
AT&T recording, so that's a pretty good chance; can't always be
certain though (I was playing with international #s just a few days
ago.)


Brad Allen   Ulmo@MCIMail.Com