Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: mcvax!jyu.fi!makela@uunet.uu.net (Otto J. Makela) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Overseas Collect Calls Message-ID: Date: 26 Jun 89 22:42:10 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: "Otto J. Makela" Organization: Grand Hall of Justice, Mega-City One Lines: 17 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 215, message 6 of 8 It IS possible to call an overseas coin-phone collect ! A friend of mine tried it, just for the heck of it. Seems that in the US, a collect operator will know from the telephone number if the phone is unbillable (could someone supply the rule ? xxn-xxxx, with n>4, or how was it ?) Not so if you are calling overseas (or probably even from any country with radically different phone systems than the US). A similar note is that since bank and other money cards are internationally standardized, they are also formatted in a similar way. Now, a credit-card operated phone here won't accept any bank card... but the Swedish ones will accept a Finnish card ! And since the banks in question have no common billing arrangements, the poor telco computer just has to chuck the bill in spite of having very detailed info on the card owner... Otto J. Makela, University of Jyvaskyla InterNet: makela@tukki.jyu.fi, BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_@FINJYU.BITNET BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d), Phone: +358 41 613 847 Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE