Telephone Calls

It was dramatic: A caller to KLOS-FM's popular "Mark and Brian" morning show had his wife on the line and was telling her he wanted a divorce because he knew she'd been cheating on him with his best friend. Listeners heard the whole encounter. It was "real-life and hard-core, one of the most talked-about bits ever," one of the hosts said later. It turns out to have been a hoax. The segment was part of a regular feature on the KLOS (95.

Looking for some kebab? Need a Farsi-speaking plumber? Can't find the showtimes for a new Iranian film release? Just call Iranian 411. The information line run by a private company and staffed by half a dozen Farsi-speaking operators puts Los Angeles' enclave of Iranian immigrants in touch with services provided by local expatriates. Its popularity underscores the paradox of Iranian assimilation in Los Angeles. In the three decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, many have reached the pinnacles of business and civic engagement, snatching up prime real estate and sending their children to the finest schools.

It's the end of time, at least as far as AT&T is concerned. The brief note in customers' bills hardly does justice to the momentousness of the decision. "Service withdrawal," it blandly declares. "Effective September 2007, Time of Day information service will be discontinued." What that means is that people throughout Southern California will no longer be able to call 853-1212 to hear a woman's recorded voice state that "at the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be . . ."

The Federal Communications Commission is looking into complaints by AT&T Inc. that the Google Voice phone service blocks some calls within the United States to avoid a high connection fee. The FCC sent an inquiry to Google Inc. on Friday seeking information about the software's functionality, the number of users and the identity of its partners. Google Voice allows users to consolidate their home, office and cellphone numbers by routing the calls through a central Google number.

The percentage of phone calls increased sharply in the aftermath of news of the U.S. and Iraqi attacks. On Jan. 16 Calls to Mideast up 40% Domestic calls up 25% On Jan. 17: Calls to Mideast (including calls to Israel) up 3,000% Domestic calls up 20%

A persistent obscene telephone caller thought he had an interested listener on the line at 3:15 a.m. Monday when she agreed to meet him at a local Denny's Restaurant. So he called her back. Twice. And he even told her the address of the business where he was making the calls while working as a private security guard, police said. Sgt.

Suzanne Willert, a 46-year-old interior designer, is not easily frightened, but an early-morning phone call has left her terrified and shaken. A male caller with a deep, authoritative voice reached Willert at her home in La Jolla just as she was getting ready to leave for work. "He said very sternly that if I wanted to ever see Fred alive again, I should do exactly as I'm told," Willert said. "He seemed angry at me. I had no doubt he meant business."

Emboldened by a new legal opinion, the Los Angeles City Council, which recently extended a 10% tax on intrastate long-distance telephone calls to include interstate calls, gave preliminary approval Wednesday to expand the levy again to encompass international calls. The council voted 10 to 3 in favor of the tax. A second, final vote is scheduled next Wednesday. The council's action was prompted both by new legal rulings and appeals of phone industry representatives.

A South Bay man who police believe made as many as 1,000 obscene telephone calls to women on the Westside and in the South Bay was sentenced last Friday to six months in County Jail, according to Richard de la Sota, deputy district attorney at Inglewood Municipal Court. David Arthur Cohen, 26, who told victims his name was Tom Springer, was also ordered to pay about $4,000 to the telephone company for the costs of the telephone taps that resulted in his arrest last November, de la Sota said.

In those dark and unwired days before most people had pagers, personal computers and cellular phones, telephone users believed that the only time a person's area code changed was when they moved. Indeed, the 213 area code reigned supreme in Los Angeles County, and throughout Southern California, from 1947 to 1984, when it finally surrendered the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys to the 818 area code.

AT&T Inc. is urging the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Google Inc.'s Google Voice service on grounds it may be violating federal telecommunications laws. The phone giant based its request on news reports that said Google Voice restricts users from placing calls to certain areas with carriers that charge high access fees. Under federal law, other telephone service providers don't have that option. "By blocking these calls, Google is able to reduce its access expenses," AT&T said in a letter it sent Friday to the FCC. The complaint was the latest in a fight that's been intensifying between the companies.

Google Inc.'s hot new software enables users to make cheap international calls, consolidate multiple phone numbers into one voice mail account and get e-mailed transcripts of their voice messages. But on Tuesday, Apple Inc. declined to make the call for its iPhone users. The Cupertino, Calif., electronics giant refused to allow Google to distribute its Google Voice application on iTunes, shutting out iPhone users from easily tapping into the much-anticipated service.

Los Angeles County prosecutors have launched a grand jury probe into who was behind a barrage of recorded phone messages they believe were aimed at undermining voter support for the incumbent during last year's campaign for district attorney. The investigation has raised allegations that a dirty-tricks campaign targeted Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley in the final days before he won a historic third term.

A group of master of fine arts students and recent graduates from UC San Diego are busy organizing the Freephone Art Project, an unusual art "installation" that will provide people who may have been deported from the U.S. via the Tijuana border a chance to make one free call after they have been returned to Mexico. To be specific, what the artists are installing is the phone on an outside wall of the student-run Lui Velazquez Gallery in Tijuana -- funded by the UCSD visual arts department -- which sits in a busy area close to the turnstiles where deported people frequently are dropped off by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Federal government to DirecTV and Comcast cable: What part of Do Not Call didn't you understand? Satellite television provider DirecTV Inc. agreed to pay $2.31 million to settle charges that it made more than 1 million calls to its customers who had -- as was their right -- placed themselves on a Do Not Call list, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday. And why did the company make the calls? To ask the customers to remove themselves from the list, the agency said.

Max Abrams had no idea that he was being dragged into a multimillion-dollar corporate war between two media giants when he rolled into the Sherman Oaks headquarters of his father's company, Sober Vacations International, on Wednesday morning. But the first clue that he was caught in the middle of something ugly came in voicemails left overnight on the company's phone answering system. "This one person was mumbling, 'Don't take my Nickelodeon away, you dummies,' " Abrams said in an interview.

The son of a wealthy Beverly Hills real estate developer was one of nine people indicted Monday by a federal grand jury in Greensboro, N.C., for his alleged role in a ring that authorities say stole and then sold as many as 100,000 telephone calling-card numbers. Facing one felony count of conspiracy to defraud is Claude Oliver Bilak, 22, of Beverly Hills, who attends USC and was known in the hacking community as "Killer." Bilak was unavailable for comment.

A growing number of software companies are trying to take the Internet back to the future by offering a crude form of two-way voice communication on the popular worldwide computer network at a fraction of the cost of a regular long-distance telephone call.

You have a new weapon against telemarketers. The Federal Trade Commission is now requiring prerecorded telemarketing calls, also known as robocalls, from businesses or charities to include ways to opt out of future calls. You're already supposed to be protected from unsolicited commercial calls if you're on the national Do Not Call registry, but calls from charities and businesses with which you have a relationship are permitted. Under the new rules, a prerecorded message has to give the consumer a way to cut off the business or charity call -- and ban future calls from the same source -- by pressing a number or saying a word.

The pitch: "Grandma, I'm in trouble." The scam: It's a pitch designed to tug at the heartstrings of any grandparent who answers the phone. The grandchild is in distress -- stuck in a foreign country, had the car stolen, has a medical emergency, in jail -- and turns to a trusted elder. But according to the Federal Trade Commission, the caller might be a scammer who is not a relative.