I have been having a problem for months with a very close friend not being able to call me at times because she gets a recording saying "LA 6 not created". She lives in Pasadena (AT&T) I live in Santa Monica (Verizon)
I have called Verizon and she has called AT&T - we have both reported the problem more than once. Both phone companies blame the problem as probably a problem with the other company.
Today I placed a call to my son - he lives not 2 miles away...
ARGHHHH - I get this recording: "LA 4 Not Created".
So I called 611. The Virtual Verizon Lady answers. I went through the electronic voice help - the list and trouble reports of course are so limited that I could confirm any of them - so "she" reluctantly passes me off to a human system - where I get a BUSY SIGNAL! So I hung up and tried again... (busy) and again... (busy)
Give me a break - these folks have enough money to have the kick-ass of ALL phone systms - and they don't have a load balancing system to manage call volume?
OR - is it that they are so lame the volume of calls just truly can not manage them?
AND/OR is the voice system so simplistic and inflexible that too high a volume of calls gets passed to human assistance?
Once in touch with a human (4th try) - she was very nice but a bit clueless...
She felt pretty certain that someone would need to come here and test the line, after trying to explain to her that this was really not a line problem from a few different approaches I stopped trying to get the pig to fly and said "sure sure sure Fine" and she made an appointment.
After my fun with Verizon's Virtual Help Lady and the sweet but silly girl who made the appointment for a service call I was able to get through to my son. (Of course) So I told him that he might be getting a call from Verizon - and why. While we were talking he got a call from Verizon. Shortly after that I got one.
I am impressed with the speed on this I must say!
All of this in under an hour!
The technician calls:
Another very nice and compassionate woman who seem very bright. Of course she can not duplicate the error, and also said what everyone else has said - "This is so odd. That is not one of our error messages".
I gave her the history and suggested that they allow folks to leave a brief message on the "Help" line for a technician to clarify problems.
I asked that she both document this error code - and check to see that the last records of similar problems were still documented in my account - they are.
RESOLUTION
All I want here is resolution...
I seem to recall learning years ago, when my brother worked for "the phone company", about how calls get from one place to the other.
[**cool link : http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/telephone-image.htm]
[***cooler link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange]
An overview:
- I dial a number the information is carried over the telephone line from my phone to the pole.
- A local exchange is used to connect people in a small geographic are.
- With cell phone the difference is that the call travels to a cell tower.
- The local exchange routes the call to the main exchange.
- The main exchange routes the call on - either to another main exchange or - if need be to an international exchange.
What I remember from my brother is that sometimes your call gets routed really far away because a switch is overloaded. So of course tracking it may be very difficult.
That is why I put this on my blog!
Please leave a comment if this has ever happened to you.
Leave the area code and the first 3 digits of you number are calling from and the number you are calling as well as your phone company.
I do not know that this will solve anything - but it seems like a less futile waste of time than playing 20 questions with The Virtual Verizon Lady.
: )
