AT&T’s Russian calling card conundrum —and a call for action on VNXX minutes Confusion and chaos have been used to enable folks—with zero investment in facilities-based switching assets—to obtain virtual office codes (VNXX).  These are then used to avoid paying toll access charges via Internet technology.  That in turn permits Vonage123.com to offer nationwide unlimited access at $40 per month.  As broadband becomes available, that growing segment of the telco market will continue to cut loose from our wires.  And take their numbers with them. We all know the resentment customers have about paying all those government mandated charges on their phone bill.  These go away when they switch to IP telephony. Commissions are being urged to mandate per-minute fees be paid for all VNXX minutes.  Confusion and chaos always contain opportunity. Sour grapes Last month, I lit into Cell One and AT&T for crappy customer service.  Yet we recommend AT&T prepaid calling cards as being a good deal.  AT&T promotes said cards to be used internationally to call home.  So bought my daughter Anastasia, 13, a card so she could check in from time to time as she went to visit a never-seen Great Great Grandma, 95, in a Russian village 10 overnight train hours south of Moscow.  She is escorting a Grandma, 65, who had not seen her Mom, the older Granny, in 15 years.  Over a week so far, she has not once been able to call home. Trouble has been narrowed down in four areas.  First, the AT&T Russia access number doesn’t work in all exchanges. Two, when it does, the system programming does not recognize the “800” security number printed on the cards. Third, having managed to learn (verbally) an “acceptable” security number, the voice recognition software is unable to understand the word “six,”  It insists Anastasia is saying “eight” and there is zero default to a live operator.  Fourth, my calls to AT&T’s help line at 800-361-4471 got super polite aliens (prompted by their computer screen) speaking English words and unable to understand or escalate the problem. My log shows four hours plus lots of IDDD working this system failure.  I quit when an alien said a trouble ticket was prepared.  It would be worked in three or four days.  Lovely.  Homeland Security Mamie CO out.  Open door.  Cold.  Battery volts zero.  Opened generator building.  A second door?  No – it’s snow!  The radiator fan circulated air into the building, over the radiator and packed it solid to the ceiling.  Starved for air, the engine quit.  The ever-handy line crew pitched in and shoveled the snow.  Got the generator running about the same time as the utility power came back on. Meanwhile reinforcements tended the batteries and the chargers, and got the furnace running. During this outage, all of Dare County and lower Currituck County were cut off from the world telephone network. Hatteras Island couldn’t even call the County Seat in Manteo to talk to emergency services because its toll was switched in Elizabeth City. Now I understand there is a fiber to Hatteras. A few years ago, I heard about a ship knocking out the bridge in a storm and severing communications again. Alaskan Outpost A reporter (jbs@kadiak.org) now lives on Kodiak  Island.  Its only circuits to the world are by satellite switched through DMS-10’s. But he has a few treasures. Some Strowger switches and a trusty ham radio. Copyright 2003 by A. W. Brothers and Americas Network magazine. All rights reserved.   ©  Beehive Telephone Co.