KARACHI, Jan 24: The newly-installed computerized directory assistance system of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company — better known as inquiry ‘17’ — is operating without the latest data of those analogue telephone numbers which have recently been digitalized.
Well-placed sources told Dawn that the previous year the PTCL had completed the digitalization of all the analogue telephone numbers in the city because they had been prone to frequent faults and errors. They added that in a month- long exercise the phone utility had converted more than 88,000 analogue phone numbers — having six digits — into digital phone numbers — having seven digits.
They added that the data of a large number of recently digitalized telephone numbers had not yet reached the computerized directory assistance system in all the 24 telephone exchanges in the city.
Early last year the phone utility had tasked a private concern, Future Technologies, to install the computerized directory assistance system in the PTCL exchanges.
A PTCL subscriber, Syed Mohammad Saleem, told Dawn that the phone utility had changed his telephone number without informing him what his new number was. “My telephone number was 6630855. A few days back my phone number was changed. Those who dialled my telephone number heard the following recorded message: ‘The number you dialled has changed. Please call Inquiry 17 for the new number.’”
Mr Saleem said he had naturally called Inquiry 17 to find out what his new number was. “I called Inquiry 17 from a building on Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road. My call landed at operator number 4 at Inquiry 17 at around 7.30pm on Thursday. The operator informed me that he had not received the latest data of the changed numbers. He, therefore, could not tell me what the new number was.”
Mr Saleem said that earlier in the day he had visited his telephone exchange. “I was told that my telephone number had been disconnected because of non-payment. While I showed the paid copy of the latest bill, the PTCL officials insisted that my telephone number had been disconnected because of non-payment.”
When contacted, a spokesman for the PTCL, Ather Javed Sufi, explained that according to PTCL rules no new telephone connection could be started, or an existing telephone number be shifted, until its data had not been fed into the computerized directory assistance system. “Strict orders have been issued to divisional engineers to provide the computerized directory assistance system with the fault management system slip before either starting a new telephone connection or shifting the existing one.”
Official sources told Dawn that a team of four telephone operators manned the computerized directory assistance system at one exchange where eight telephone calls could land at one time. “There is a call-in-waiting device in place which will request a caller to hold the line in case the operator is busy. When the operator is through, the caller will be connected and he will be informed what the operator number is so that if the caller is not satisfied with the performance of the operator he could lodge a complaint afterwards.”
They said that at present the computerized directory assistance operators had access to 950,000 telephone numbers which would be in time increased to 3,000,000 telephone numbers.
They added that the PTCL system also recorded the conversation between an operator and a caller so that in case a caller made a complaint the recording could be used. They added that the recording was kept for three months. Similarly the PTCL also kept the screen capture of an operator for three months which allowed it to find out how the operator handled the request for a telephone number.
The sources said the computerized directory assistance system had been installed in the following telephone exchanges: Clifton, Defence, Misrishah, North Karachi, Cantt, Korangi, Landhi, CTH, Site, Marston Road, Garden, Lyari, PECHS, Pak Capital, Gulshan-I-Iqbal, Nazimabad, Gulistan-I-Jauhar, Airport, Malir, Orangi, North Nazimabad, Azizabad, Lines Area and Keamari.