As soon as "gkremen" logged on from Raleigh, Shimmy’s team asked an FBI agent to contact General Telephone, the telephone company that provisioned Netcom’s dial-up numbers in Research Triangle Park, and request that the call be traced in real time. After a couple of attempts, General Telephone’s technicians completed a successful trace. They passed on the number to the FBI and advised that it was originating from Sprint’s cellular network.