Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!apple!bionet!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: SDRY@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Sergio Gelato) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Pennies to Heaven Message-ID: <10822@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 13 Aug 90 03:07:00 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 34 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 567, Message 6 of 11 From: 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin), Message-ID: <10665@accuvax.nwu.edu> > Here's news on the latest offering via 900 service, from the >August 6, 1990 edition of : > Just Dial 1-900-230-POPE If you prefer to hear him in Spanish, the number is +39 7779 3030. Might be cheaper too, at the current rate for calls to Italy. (Disclaimer: I haven't called myself, but the number is advertised on Vatican Radio.) It isn't clear whether the Italian telephone company donates anything to the Vatican out of gratitude for the increased revenue from Latin America; but there are other such intercontinental "hotlines". '****Sport', a British weekly (full name withheld since they don't pay me to do their advertising), has a very popular (or so they say) "0898" number (actually, they just switched to Mercury, so it's 0839 123123 in case anyone wants to waste 25p). Since they have many readers outside the UK, a few months ago they offered a way of reaching their service from abroad: "just dial +611 411 421, normal inter- national rates apply". (Kindly enough, they added "N.B. From Australia dial 00551 4009". And before you try calling: they haven't been advertising this number for the past two months, so the service may have been discontinued.) My question is: what's in it for them? Does Telecom Australia give them a share of the revenue from the calls they get? Sergio Gelato