Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ucselx!bionet!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: root@cs.tcd.ie Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Answering Telephone (was Crank Calls) Message-ID: <11314@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 24 Aug 90 16:35:14 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Computer Laboratory, Trinity College Dublin Lines: 24 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 593, Message 8 of 14 > Henry Troup writes that in > UK he was taught to answer the phone with the number, but that in > North America this is not done. Here in Ireland, when I was in school we were told to answer the phone with our number as a help to people using payphones. At that time the payphones in use here were the same as those intoduced by the U.K. Post Office around the 1930s. To use them the caller inserted the fee, dialled the number (local calls only) and when the called party answered, pressing button A connected the call and deposited the coins. If the called party announced his/her number upon answering, it assured the payphone user that the correct number had been obtained. In the event of reaching a wrong number, the caller could simply hang up and redial without paying again. The practice of answering calls with the number seems to be a minority practice in Ireland these days, but it is still common in Britain. The type of payphone described has long since been banished from the U.K., but some examples still survive here.