Casual Dialing

The PIC code you give to your local carrier when you self-PIC also has another use in the world of telecom. It acts as the basis of the dial-around code you can use to force your call onto the long-distance provider’s network.

Dial-around codes are the best gadgets in your telecom toolbox for switched phone lines. They allow you to use a long distance carrier’s network even if your local carrier doesn’t send your calls there by default. Dial-around codes also provide you with alternatives if your primary carrier is having a network failure. Dial-around code features do come with potential dangers, so read the following section to understand the pros and cons of using them, and then determine who in your office needs to know how (and when) to use them. If information about the existence of dial-around codes falls into the wrong hands, your business could lose a lot of money when the phone bill arrives. But in the right hands, they can save your company a bundle.

Dial-around codes became popular in the 1990s when companies began marketing that customers can simply dial 10-10-321 plus 1, and then the area code and number to make calls at ten cents per minute, anywhere in the continental U.S. As a result, dial-around codes are also known as 10-10 (referred to as tenten) codes or trick codes.

Casual dialing allows you to have all of your outgoing calls process by using your normal long-distance carrier by default, except for the calls that you dial with the corresponding 10-10 code.

Understanding how 10-10 codes work

Dial-around codes override the routing with your local carrier. Usually, when you dial a long-distance number, the call is transmitted to your local carrier; the local carrier identifies the long-distance carrier for your phone line, and sends the call off to the long-distance network. The 10-10 code stops that process short. When your local carrier receives a call that begins with a 10-10 code, it understands that to mean “do not pay any attention to the long-distance carrier that is set up on this phone line; simply place the call on the network with the last four digits of this 10-10 code.” If you dial 10-10-288 and then a phone number, your local carrier ignores your chosen long-distance service provider and sends the call by using the carrier with PIC 0288 (which happens to be AT&T, in case you were wondering). A comprehensive list of the PIC codes — how they look as dial-around codes can be found at Discount Long Distance Digest, the Internet Journal of the Long Distance Industry (www. thedigest.com/faq/picodes.html).

Calls placed with 10-10 codes are billed by your local carrier and itemized in the long-distance section of your phone bill. If you casual dial using several carriers, your phone bill will have sections for each casual dialing carrier, listing some general contact information for the carriers and an itemized list of individual calls made with each carrier in their network.

Benefits of casual dialing

Because casual dialing enables you to have calls routed to the long-distance carrier of your choice, it gives you a lot of freedom. Some of the benefits of using a casual dialing code are:

• You’re never without long-distance service. If you have a dial tone on your phone, and your local carrier hasn’t placed any restrictions or blocks on your line, you can use any carrier with an open network whenever you want. When a large earthquake hit Northridge, California, in 1994, most of the major carriers’ networks went down. Survivors of the quake who had long-distance service with MCI or AT&T were out of luck — all outbound calls failed to a fast-busy signal. On the other hand, the Sprint network was still working fine. Individuals who dialed 10-10-333 for Sprint and then dialed 1+ area code+ telephone number were able to contact loved ones without a problem. Of course, those people may have been charged $3 per minute for the call, but at least family members knew that all was well.

   Tip  Obviously, the practical applications of the 10-10 codes goes beyond natural disasters. You can always make calls on another network like AT&T (10-10-288) or MCI (10-10-222) if your current carrier is failing. You will pay more for the call, but at least you can make the call.

• No default taxes per phone line are charged to you by the 10-10 carrier. Because you’re using the service only when you want to, and on only the calls you want, the standard fees assessed for having a phone line assigned to a long-distance carrier don’t apply.

• Your local carrier doesn’t charge you to change carriers. You have the benefit of placing calls by using another carrier, but don’t have to wait for your local carrier to change the PIC on your phone line, and you don’t have to pay your local carrier for the privilege.

• You can try it before you buy it. If you would like to move to another long-distance carrier, but you have reservations about the quality of its network, have the carrier set up your lines for casual dialing before you authorize a full-fledged PIC. (The carrier’s technicians open the network to receive and process calls from your phone numbers, but don’t send an order to your local carrier to make any changes.) During that time, you can make calls with their 10-10 code to your normal calling areas to ensure that the quality is sufficient. This is a very useful suggestion if your organization makes a lot of international calls. The international platforms that carriers use can vary quite a bit, and you don’t want to jump to a new carrier if there is so much static on the lines when you do get through to Asia that it negates any financial savings you might gain.

• You can set up your phone line on more than one carrier. If you have a great deal on your domestic calls with Qwest, but its international rates are less than stellar, you can use another carrier for those calls. You need to ensure that your backup carrier is okay being set up for casual dialing only; but assuming that the second carrier doesn’t have an issue with it, you can get the best of both worlds. After the carrier tells you the 10-10 code you need to use, and opens up its network to receive your calls, you can instantly begin on the network. All of your domestic long-distance calls are sent as usual with your primary long-distance carrier’s network. If you want to make a call overseas, say to Germany, you simply dial 10-10-321 (or whatever the access code is) +011 49 and the rest of the number, and the call completes by using your casual dialing carrier.

Making sure your casual dialing carrier is designated as no-PIC

When you speak to the carrier you want to use for casual dialing, you must confirm that your system will be set up correctly. You don’t want an order sent to your local carrier to change the long-distance on all of your phone lines.

The casual dialing partner’s system must designate your numbers as no-PICs. As long as the carrier you are speaking to provides casual dialing, the agent you speak to should recognize the term no-PIC when you throw it around, and understand that you don’t want your local carrier to have any formal relationship with this carrier. Specifying the status of your relationship as no-PIC ensures that your lines are open on the casual dialing carrier’s network, but that they don’t disturb the configuration with your local carrier.

Avoiding the downside of casual dialing

Casual dialing offers quite a few benefits if you plan it out, research it well, and use it wisely; but casual dialing comes with some challenges as well:

• You may forget to dial the 10-10 code before you dial the phone number. The 10-10 code only works if you dial it before every call you want to make on the casual dialing network. If you forget to dial the 10-10 code before the phone number, the call defaults to your standard long-distance carrier.

• You may forget the 10-10 code and dial the wrong digits. If the 10-10 code you use is 10-10-345 and instead you dial 10-10-543, your call is sent to another carrier. If the other carrier’s network is closed, your call fails. If the other carrier’s network is open, the call goes through, but your bill may be much higher for the call than you were expecting.

• You may have little (if any) customer service access. If you use a 10-10 code that was advertized on TV or the Web, you won’t have access to a large support network. Who do you report trouble to if you dial the 10-10 code and your call fails, or has static, or you heard so much echo that you have to hang up and call back using your regular carrier? Who do you call to dispute your invoice if there is a 3-hour call listed on it from your phone that overlaps 15 calls you made on the same line by using your primary carrier? The support networks for companies that only provide casual dialing access, and no other telecom services, is generally not as robust as you will find with a mainstream carrier that also offers the service along with other calling services.