I've Got Your Freaking Number!

[Admiral Valdemar]

UK members will know what I mean, but I just heard that the directory enquiry company 118-118 has been investigated by OFTEL about many complaints such as people just hanging up, finding wrong numbers, not knowing their geography and in one case, a guy giving the same number out to every caller; Pizza Hut's number.

Burn in hell I say, damn them and their bloody adverts.

[Zoink]

Pizza Hut's number.

"I'm sorry, we can't send an ambulance for your heart attack, but we can offer you a low-fat pizza"

[Frank Hipper]

Is this an emergency service of some kind that people are abusing? Bless those of us who are not UK residents with a little more background on this 118-118, please.

[2000AD]

Is this an emergency service of some kind that people are abusing? Bless those of us who are not UK residents with a little more background on this 118-118, please.

Up untill recently there was one directory enquiries number ( 192) operated by BT. However that got closed down and now there's a shit load of enquiry numbers all beggining with 118.

118-118 is currently the most popular due to a advertising campaign that didn't piss off everyone (only almost everyone)

[El Moose Monstero]

118-118 is the de-monopolised version of 192 directory enquiries, sort of a dial-up yellow pages, 192 was originally the sole property of BT, who did a damn good job of it, but it was decided that the monopoly was unfair, and the service is now available for any company. Some of these, I have heard, are actually operating in India from residences as small as a garage.

I tend to use 118 500 as a rule, IIRC, thats the old BT one under a new name, slightly cheaper as well, just dont connect directly through them.

EDIT: I think the Guardian rang up and asked all the different companies for different things, I think they rang up 118-118 and asked for the Beast...

Rather predictably, this resulted in,
'I'm sorry, we can't find that number...'
'Look, I just want the number of the beast...'

[2000AD]

Rather predictably, this resulted in,
'I'm sorry, we can't find that number...'
'Look, I just want the number of the beast...'

I'm going to have to try that.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Pizza Hut's number.

"I'm sorry, we can't send an ambulance for your heart attack, but we can offer you a low-fat pizza"

If someone used that number for an ambulance then they deserve a pizza.

999 is and always has been the emergency number for the UK.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Okay, exchange of knowledge here.

411 is the number for information. It is universal across the US as far as I know.

911 is our emergency number and that is universal across the US.

I never thought about who runs them. I dont know to be honest. 911 is run by local agencies, Police I think. I know if you dial 911 with a cell phone you will get the California Highway Patrol.

[MKSheppard]

118-118 is the de-monopolised version of 192 directory enquiries, sort of a dial-up yellow pages, 192 was originally the sole property of BT, who did a damn good job of it, but it was decided that the monopoly was unfair, and the service is now available for any company.

Stupid brits, "demonopolizing" tends to fuck anything up, just the same
with your railroads. Selling the Track/Signalling system to one company
and the locomotives/rollingstock to another leads to crossed wires and
inevitable fuckups...

[Zoink]

If someone used that number for an ambulance then they deserve a pizza.

999 is and always has been the emergency number for the UK.

Ya, you probably have your act together in the UK. Here (Canada) we have 911, but its not universal. Small towns and rural areas often don't have 911, so if you were stuck in such a place you *might* have to dial the operator to get a connection to the local police/fire/ambulance.

[CmdrWilkens]

118-118 is the de-monopolised version of 192 directory enquiries, sort of a dial-up yellow pages, 192 was originally the sole property of BT, who did a damn good job of it, but it was decided that the monopoly was unfair, and the service is now available for any company.

Stupid brits, "demonopolizing" tends to fuck anything up, just the same
with your railroads. Selling the Track/Signalling system to one company
and the locomotives/rollingstock to another leads to crossed wires and
inevitable fuckups...

Because, certainly, Amtrack is the perfect example of a helathy Monopoly making service easy and available to many while turning a tidy profit...oh wait.

[Companion Cube]

Yep, those adverts annoy the hell out of me. Especially the one where they get chased by the bearded children.

[MKSheppard]

Because, certainly, Amtrack is the perfect example of a helathy Monopoly making service easy and available to many while turning a tidy profit...oh wait.

It's obvious you don't know jack crap about Amtrak.

The ONE area where they make a profit and run on time is in ONE place
and ONE place alone, the Northeast Corridor, which they OWN 100%.

No one else is allowed to run on the NEC, and they booted Conrail from the
NEC after a very bad accident in the 1980s.

In the rest of the country, guess who owns the track? Yep. The Freight
Railroads, and they don't care if an Amtrak train is delayed by a long
haul freight.

EDIT: yes, just rememberd, Amtrak does allow freight to run on the NEC,
but it is very rare and is only done in the middle of the night, when
no other trains are on the NEC...why?

On Sunday January 4th 1987, Amtrak's Colonial Pulled out of Union Station in Washington DC carrying 616 passengers and crew on 12 cars. 63 minutes later it was entering Chase Maryland at a speed of 128 miles per hour. Just ahead were three Conrail Locomotives that failed to stop at a switch. The result was a major collision which in the end left 16 people dead and 184 injured.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Stupid brits, "demonopolizing" tends to fuck anything up, just the same
with your railroads. Selling the Track/Signalling system to one company
and the locomotives/rollingstock to another leads to crossed wires and
inevitable fuckups...

Because, certainly, Amtrack is the perfect example of a helathy Monopoly making service easy and available to many while turning a tidy profit...oh wait.[/quote]

I dont think Amtrack is a fair comparison. A natural monopoly like the Old Ma Bell or pre botched deruglation of California power companies is more apt.

I think in the the case of power companies and phone companies dereg can really leave the end user hanging dry. Others could benefit from it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Because, certainly, Amtrack is the perfect example of a helathy Monopoly making service easy and available to many while turning a tidy profit...oh wait.

Break Amtrak into a couple pieces and the US would very rapidly have only two or three routes active, if anything. There simply are not enough passengers to support any form of service. Competition won't change that. Probably the only thing that could is a bunch more terrorist attacks on airliners in America. Even then I doubt it.

[MKSheppard]

Crap..the more I read about this accident the more I hate it...

• Overhead track signals clearly gave the right of way to Amtrak and told the Conrail train to slow down and prepare to stop, said investigators. In statements
to Conrail investigators, Gates said otherwise.

• The radio system on the Conrail locomotive was inoperable so Gates carried a portable with limited range.

• Gates and his brakeman tested positive for marijuana in their urine and blood plasma, revealed the Federal Railroad Administration. The tests couldn't pinpoint when the marijuana was ingested, and the results didn't establish that the men were intoxicated at the time of the crash, reported some drug experts. Tissue tests showed the dead Amtrak engineer, Jerome Evans, 35, had no drug traces.

NTSB made one recommendation on which neither Amtrak nor Conrail would comment: Ten years earlier and again now, the safety board recommended that all locomotives traveling the Northeast Corridor be equipped with safety brakes that would stop a train if the engineer couldn't, or if a signal hadn't been seen. Amtrak trains have this equipment. Conrail does not.

No wonder Amtrack rudely booted CR from the NEC

[InnerBrat]

There's a difference between de monopolising and privatisation.

Privatisation = bad. It takes public transport (and health) out of the Public control. and puts profit over saftey

Demonopolisation = good (in a way). It prevents private companies operating previously public services from charging willy nill (I never used 192 because of the price). It gives us more choice (OK, so I've generally chosen BT, but at least they're competitive now)

[CmdrSweevo]

UK members will know what I mean, but I just heard that the directory enquiry company 118-118 has been investigated by OFTEL about many complaints such as people just hanging up, finding wrong numbers, not knowing their geography and in one case, a guy giving the same number out to every caller; Pizza Hut's number.

Burn in hell I say, damn them and their bloody adverts.

I stopped using them the fourth or fifth time they insisted there wasn't a Warner Village in Basingstoke. I think the information-service (cinema times and such) side of their operation clashes head on with the get-shot-of-them-ASAP policy...

[MKSheppard]

Privatisation = bad. It takes public transport (and health) out of the Public control. and puts profit over saftey

Excuse me, we have had private railroads for the last 150 years, and they're
just as safe as a government run monopoly, ditto our airlines.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Privatisation = bad. It takes public transport (and health) out of the Public control. and puts profit over saftey

Excuse me, we have had private railroads for the last 150 years, and they're
just as safe as a government run monopoly, ditto our airlines.

And what of your healthcare?

[Lord Pounder]

In a follow up on the Radio 1 news i heard that they where giving out the wrong numbers deliberatly because apparently if the call centre opperator gets a bouns is he deals with the call in less than 40 seconds, so they started making shit up to get rid quickly.