Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service
- Reference: 1640341689
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/12/24/on_call/
- Source link:
Our story, from a reader Regomised as "Des", takes place in the closing years of the 20th century and concerns an IVR platform he'd developed.
IVR, or Interactive Voice Response, was the slightly inaccurate name given to the then exciting new technology whereby one might jab digits on one's phone to interact with a system on the other end of the line. Perhaps to leave a voicemail, make an order, or interact with any number of premium services.
[2]
Sure, such systems had been around for a while, but improvements in technology allowed all manner of creative endeavours to flourish back in those days. Alas, voice recognition was a tad rudimentary, but the tones emitted by the keys would usually do the trick.
[3]
[4]
As for Des, he'd sold a version of his platform to one of the UK's "premium rate" players. He'd popped in a 60-line system. There were two E1 circuits and a block of 0208 numbers assigned. The customer had purchased a set of premium rate numbers and had them routed to those 0208 numbers. A simple system – customers would dial the ever-so-expensive number and be automatically connected to the service required.
"These were the kind of services aimed at the single male and advertised in such august publications as the Sunday Sport," explained Des delicately.
[5]
All went swimmingly until the inevitable support call came in.
"Apparently some company in London had complained that they were receiving calls from people who'd called one of these premium rate numbers," Des told us, "The callers were kind of upset that they weren't getting what they'd paid for, and the company's receptionist equally miffed at the nature of the calls she was having to field."
We can just imagine.
[6]Lack shame? Fancy some festive Windows knitwear? We've got your back
[7]What came first? The chicken, the egg, or the bodge to make everything work?
[8]Say what you see: Four-letter fun on a late-night support call
[9]Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?
The premium number company insisted its routing was fine, so Des investigated further.
"I called the premium rate number and got connected to their justifiably shirty receptionist."
[10]
OK – so the calls were definitely going to wrong place. Not so much Sultry of Southwark, more Angry of [11]Angmering .
Working with the receptionist, Des began troubleshooting the problem: when had the problems started? What had been happening? What was the phone number the receptionist had answered...?
Aha. The number was identical to one of the numbers routed to the IVR platform, except it was in the inner (as it was back in the day) London (0207) rather than the outer London (0208) area code.
He then dialled the company's number directly and, rather than the annoyed receptionist, found himself on the receiving end of an entirely different sort of telephone conversation. A bit more, er, specialist.
He called up the US telephone company to explain they'd managed to achieve something that successive UK governments had failed to do, and swapped inner and outer London.
"Quite understandable," he added, "they were Americans after all."
Shortly after, normal service was resumed. The receptionist was spared unwanted calls, and the callers? One can but hope they also received whatever satisfaction they were seeking.
Telephone number routing can seem like magic to the uninitiated. But at least the on call number doesn't get directed to a premium line. Or does it? Confess all with an email to [12]On Call . ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YcWoa5pfRHZvFfEfVrWmXQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YcWoa5pfRHZvFfEfVrWmXQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/win_a_sweater/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/on_call/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/05/on_call/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/01/on_call/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YcWoa5pfRHZvFfEfVrWmXQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.angmering-pc.gov.uk/
[12] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I once worked for an American company (in London) who rejected a proposal to have a DDI block where the 7-digit numbers all began with 666, on the grounds that a) some Americans might be scared to call them and b) some Americans might decide to sue, on the grounds that the company in question is somehow in league with Rex Inferioris himself.
Then we had an American guy in the office saying we shouldn't be allowed to have some London numbers be of the format 911-xxxx because it might confuse any visiting Americans who might just want to call them and hesitate in case they get through to the Feds.
Surely, some receptionists that are built like/look like the arse-end of a London Bus were actually quite liking the new attention they were getting?
Back in those days you could get away with not employing anyone who didn't project the right sort of image in public facing roles.
Wrong number
After the change from 0171 and 0181 to 020 there was no longer a differentiation between inner and outer London for the purposes of area codes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Number_Change#Geographic_number_changes) There was also the addition of the 3 prefix for London phone numbers.
One of my very sad bugbears is companies still displaying their number as starting 0207, 0208 or 0203.
Ahh the old audiotex days
It was one of those industries I worked in back in the 90's.
My company was taken over by a shady outfit called CommsCo or something like that.
A colleague called Dave was the tech looking after the shady phone lines. Apparently the receptionist at CommsCo got quite flustered when he had to record some new material with a couple of models. Some "girl on girl" we might say...
Anyhow, some time later, as "business was dropping off", the directors decided to have a BBQ in the machine room, and then claimed on the insurance for all the expensive kit.
At a former firm, I once part-wrote an IVR that routed callers to operators in a (necessarily) complicated way.
Due to a bug present at launch some callers were mistakenly forwarded to the emergency services because one part of the system used 999 as an undocumented error code. Oops.