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From: apple!well.sf.ca.us!well!mingo@uunet.uu.net (Charles Hawkins Mingo)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Home Intercom Custom Calling Service
Message-ID: <11109@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 19 Aug 90 20:17:49 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 583, Message 11 of 11


In article <10651@accuvax.nwu.edu> Dan.Birchall@samba.acs.unc.edu
writes:

>Just saw on the news here (Philadelphia) where Bell of PA. is now
>going to offer a new custom calling service, Home Intercom...  Service
>is aimed toward elderly, handicapped, and people with several phones
>on the same line.  From a phone with the service, you can dial your
>own number, and other phones on the line will give a distinctive ring.
>Price is the usual two bucks and change per month.

When I was growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada we could do this
too.  The exchange (902/423-xxxx) dated from the early fifties, did
not allow touch-tone, and apparantly had this feature to accomodate
party line customers who wished to call one another (according to the
phone book, where I first discovered this).

Anyway, one dialed 41091, hung up, and the phones rang with a double
length ring.  You waited until the ringing stopped (meaning someone
else had answered the phone), and picked up yourself.

I had used this feature as recently as April 1988 (when I was
convalescing at home with a broken leg); however, when I tried it in
August 1989, after the exchange went digital, it worked no more.

Plus ca change, plus le meme chose.


Charlie Mingo			Internet: mingo@well.sf.ca.us
2209 Washington Circle #2	CI$:  71340,2152
Washington, DC  20037		AT&T:  202/785-2089