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Glitch opens free phone link to south Asia

A number of long-distance calls, largely to India and Pakistan, were made last week free of charge in Ontario and Quebec following a 'technical glitch' in the system of Toronto-based reseller of long-distance service provider Telehop Communications.

Hersh Spiegelman, chief executive of Telehop, said in an interview that they, with Bell Canada, had started an investigation to find out how the glitch occurred and how many free calls were actually made over six days before it was detected and rectified.

According to rough calculations, about 1,200 calls, mostly to India and Pakistan, were made. Spiegelman said his company is "tracking" on an average Cd$10-15 million annually and 1,200 calls "is not a heck of a lot".

"We are upgrading our software" so that "there's no repetition of such a glitch," he added.

Spiegelman said the source of the glitch could be the software behind "dialround" numbers, which divert long-distance calls to Telehop's network. The "dialround" numbers generally aren't supposed to work on pay phones "because there's no address to which those calls can be billed", he explained.

Telehop has an access code 10-10-620 after which the long-distance telephone number is to be dialled. Anybody can access this code without formal registration with Telehop. Bell Canada then bills the call to the customer and the rest is the business arrangement between Bell Canada and Telehop.

During those six days, anybody who dialled 10-10-620 at one of Bell Canada's Millennium pay telephones was able to make free long-distance calls.

Spiegelman said a few people in suburban Brampton, near Toronto, detected the glitch and then as the word spread people started queueing outside the payphone booths.

Bell Canada didn't return a reporter's call or e-mail message. Norm Berberich of Bell Canada is reported in The Toronto Star as saying they immediately began to investigate the problem after receiving complaints.

Bell's network monitoring staff detected unusual activity in certain areas where its Millennium pay phones are installed.

Made by Nortel Networks Co, the Millennium phones can read calling cards and smart cards and have gradually replaced older Centurion phones.

"By law, Bell has to provide free access to these [dialround] networks, so people don't even need to use a quarter," Berberich is quoted as saying. "It's [the reseller's] responsibility to ensure that this software detects these phones."

Asked who would pay for all these free long-distance calls, Spiegelman quietly said "we may have to pay" and so the company is upgrading its software to ensure there's no repetition of such a technical glitch.

Telehop's 10-10-620 service gives customers 15 minutes for $1 to anywhere in North America. After 15 minutes customers pay 15 cents for each additional minute.

The rate for India and Pakistan is $1 for two minutes and 70 cents for each additional minute. "After two minutes they invariably put the receiver down and call again," said Spiegelman. That way, the users pay 50 cents a minute to India and Pakistan against Bell Canada's rate of 75 cents.

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