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                          http://www.phreaksandgeeks.com

                        Verizon's Expanded Announcement System
                              Audio file portion by ic0n 
                              Text file by Captain B

http://www.phreaksandgeeks.com

To skip directly to listening to the supplemental audio file first, which will
let you hear the menu prompts from inside the Expanded Announcement System, go
to:

http://goblin.crappyhosting.com/Expanded_Announcement.mp3 - 

Or via oldskoolphreak.com at 

http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/rfa/eas.mp3 -

Telco error messages... We've all heard one at some point. An atypical error
message usually starts off with those 3 tones, known as S.I.T. (Special
Information Tones) followed by, "We're sorry. The number you have reached...
etc". But, have you ever wondered about the recording process for phone company
error messages, or how they're stored, accessed, modified, or deleted when need
be? Well, if you happen to live in my part of Verizon's service area, Verizon
maintains a phone system they call their Expanded Announcement System. Now, due
to the fairly potent nature of this system, I won't be disclosing certain
important specifics here, such as the phone number to dial, or the passcode to
enter in. But, I will tell you that once inside the system, you can listen to,
record, modify, or delete error messages. The thing I was kind of surprised to
learn about is that a single telco error message is usually 2 or more individual
recordings pieced together to form a single error message. And actually, the
system refers to those individual recordings as a "message". And, an entire
error message put together from those individual message recordings is called an
"announcement". Each individual message in an announcement is stored in a slot,
which the system refers to as a "position". And, every other position in an
announcement seems to be blank. (Doesn't contain a message). I think this is
because it contains a "message function" instead. Which, I believe tells the
system whether to play another message for the next position in the
announcement. And, if so, it would also tell it which one to play. Otherwise,
the announcement is deemed finished, and therefore ends if no message function
is contained in the next position. In other words, a message function serves as
the parameters within an announcement. And, as you probably guessed, there
exists a feature in the menus to "define a message function". And, although I
didn't mess with that feature to play it safe, I imagine it could be a fairly
involved process. By the way, if you were to record over an existing message
with one of your own, all announcements that used that particular message within
it would now feature your re-recording of that message. However, the system
seems to not allow for any recorded messages assigned for use in many
announcements to be recorded over. Apparently, this is some sort of failsafe
measure. However, you can always re-record a message that's hardly assigned much
for use within announcements, or Isn't assigned for use in any announcement.
Also, you can record a brand new message within any blank "message number" that
doesn't already contain a recorded message. Or, just use option 5 from within
the message administration menu (accessible from the main menu) to create a new
message/message number from scratch. The system information feature in the main
menu lets you listen to a list of open announcement numbers, message functions,
and open or unused message numbers. Unused message numbers are recorded,  but
unassigned messages. Different announcements and message functions are stored
seperately in individual announcement numbers, and message function numbers on
the system. Just like how the different messages are stored seperately in
individual message numbers. All in all, Verizon's Expanded Announcement System
is pretty complex and vast, with a storage of thousands of messages, and lots of
announcements and message functions. And, an almost limitless number of ways to
combine them all. As a result, I would guess it could take a pretty good amount
of time to put together an entire announcement. Especially if It's all done from
scratch, rather than through modifying or using any existing messages, message
functions, or announcements. But, I don't think I recommend spending long
sessions logged into the Expanded Announcement System in the first place.
Especially not during regular Verizon business hours. (It's just good common
sense). Also, I don't know whether this system is logging ANI, either. Besides,
It's pretty obvious that they intended this system to be for telco tech
personnel use only, anyway. By the way, you don't have to live in my local or
regional area to access the Expanded Announcement System, since It's dialable
through a standard 10 digit phone number.

Shout outs: ic0n (as always), Hopping Goblin, OldSkoolPhreak.com and all the
Agents of Freedom, Dual Parallel, Stankdawg.com and all the forum krew over
there, all the people behind the screens at hackerhost.com, CueBiz and the
Telco Insiders, Decoder, Unity, Phreakblaze, White Raven, Bagel, Reaver, and all
the old LPH krew. Fellow SkyTel legend Mr. P, and, the countless people who've
helped me and ic0n make our site phreaksandgeeks.com what It's grown into.

P.S. I have also come to learn that the EAS is not exclusive to only Verizon
service areas. But, these EA systems are quite rare. So, good luck finding one.