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.memo "Oley Killingsworth, Telecommunications Supervisor, Plant Services",
."Lester Earnest, Associate Director, Artificial Intelligence Lab.",
."Elimination of Spurious Telephone Toll Charges";
.fac once indent 0,8;
%3Reference:%1  Carol Taynai, %3Telephone "TIE-LINES"%1, memo to Bruce Wiggins
(Plant Services), Sept. 13, 1974.

.skip;
This note follows up on a suggestion for telephone cost reduction that
I made to you several weeks ago.  My proposal was then tentative,
contingent upon technical feasibility with the particular telephone
switching equipment that we have.  I have since learned from telephone
company representatives that the idea is feasible, so I now propose
some action.

.cb PROBLEM

The switch to Centrex, while functionally advantageous, has increased
our costs in a number of ways.  One major waste involves dialing "9"
to make message unit and toll calls to places that could be reached
on tie-lines.  Before Centrex, such calls were automatically intercepted
on the Stanford switchboard.  Now they go through without a blink.

The cost to our laboratory of this kind of mis-dialing is currently
about $350 per month.  Conversations with other campus groups indicate
that the problem is widespread [see Reference, for example].

These dialing errors could possibly be reduced by continually educating
our staff on the proper use of tie-lines, but such failures cannot be
eliminated in this way.  Even though I am fairly conscientious about
phone use, I occasionally dial what I think is a local number only
to discover later that it was ouside this area and could have been
reached on a tie-line.

Fortunately, there is a convenient technical solution.

.cb SOLUTION

I propose that the "9" line be made to function essentially as it used
to (as a "local-only" line) and that another number, such as "59", be
used to place toll and message unit calls for those phones that have
this privilege.  Then, if a person inadvertantly dials a non-local
number (via "9") he will get an intercept or a distinctive tone.

One could consider the inverse arrangement, with "9" for toll calls
and "59" for local-only, but this would make it easier to do the
wrong thing (i.e. always dial "9").  I believe that the slight
inconvenience from having to dial two digits instead of one in order
to make toll calls is more than offset by the convenience of not having to carefully
check the location of the exchange before dialing what appears to be
a local call.

Telephone company representatives have indicated that this scheme
can readily be implemented.  I believe that the cost of switching
to this arrangement will be repaid many times over by the prevention
of spurious charges that our present system invites.

.skip 2; tabs 6; turn on "\"; nofill
cc:\Bruce Wiggins, Plant Services
\Dan DeYoung, Plant Services
\Carolyn Taynai, Digital Systems Lab.
\Jerry Jobe, A. I. Lab.