jgrove24@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
> September 18, 2006
>
> CANTON, OHIO -- A widow rented rotary dial telephones for 42 years,
> paying what her family calculates as thousands of dollars for now
> outdated phones.
> Ester Strogen, 82, of Canton, first leased two black rotary phones--the
> kind with a round dial--in the 1960s. At the time, the telephone
> business was monopolized by AT&T.
> Ma Bell was split into seven smaller companies in 1983. From 1985 to
> 1986, customers who leased telephones were given the option to continue
> leasing, buy them or opt out of their agreements.
Back when AT&T first gave customers the option to use their own
equipment, my folks jumped on the deal. They were offered the option of
buying their dial wall phone (for over a hundred dollars, IIRC) or
paying about a hundred dollars to have a technician come out and remove
it.
When my dad called the service department, he picked option #3, which
was that he would remove it and bring it in himself. The service rep
tried to pressure him into allowing a tech. to come out and remove it,
as phones were far too complex for the average person to understand.
We removed the phone ourselves and found an old piece of broken sheet
rock in the garage (left over from some other project). We screwed the
AT&T phone onto the sheet rock, with about 10' of old telco wire still
attached. My dad brought it to the AT&T service center, plunked it down
on the counter and the service rep didn't say a word.
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
are only 10 kinds of people in this world,
those who understand binary and those who don't.
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