
   _____  _____   ___  ___ __ 
  /  |  \|  _  \  \  \/  /|  |
 /       \   __/   \    / |  |
 \       /  |       \  /  |  |
  \_____/|__|        \/   |__|

PRESENTS:

More fun with a phone
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By: ergophobe

Short and sweet I know, but there's really not a lot to be said.

There have been a lot articles written about using 175 and 17070 to perform tasks such as ringback linetests and shutting down the line. Well, a friend of mine was doing an 0800 scan recently and found an alternative. 175 and 17070 are both becoming more increasingly difficult to use now, and only worked on certain types of phones in the first place. This one can be dialed from every phone we've tried it on (quite a lot) including several different moblies, land lines and just about every type of payphone we've been able to find including a Eurobell one.

So "what is this magical number?" I hear you cry. 0800 373983 should do the job nicely. Use it in the same way that 17070 was used.

For those of you who are not familiar with 17070 (if you've been living in a cave or something), forst it will tell you what the number you're phoning from is, then it will just give you a list of options, and you press the button that corresponds to the option you want.
The options are:
1     Rings the phone back when you hang up
2     Quiet line
3     Gives you another set of options for testing lines in various ways (this is absolutely hilarious, it says "press 1 if you have been authorised to use this system, or hang up. If BT really think anybody is going to hang up at this point they are even dumber then I thought!!!)
4     Hangs up (clear down).

Option 3 is probably the most useful of them. It allows you to test and shut down lines in various different ways. Possibly the best thing is the "cable pair idnetification" option. This will cut off any traffic to the line that you identify. Very handy for cutting people off when you want to get through. I've not tried this one YET, but a cable pair identification on an ISP could cause some serious havoc. Try it on 0845 0796699 (freeserve) for example. This option really has some potential. If you are planning on cutting off all the traffic on the line of an ISP, for gods sake do it from a phonebox or a ripped mobile. You shouldn't really need to be reminded of these things, but anybody can make a mistake.

It is worth noting that if you're trying this from a phone which uses pulse dialing (WHY?) then you'll need your tone dialer handy, as it needs the tone for the number rather than the clicks.

I'd have to say that just about covers this particular topic, but try experenmenting with the options that this little number gives you, as you never know how useful they may turn out to be.

ergophobe