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From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Automated Collect Calling
Message-ID: <11400@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 26 Aug 90 16:49:58 GMT
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In article <11309@accuvax.nwu.edu> Pat writes:

>many actual telephone companies have recently experimented with it.  PAT]

New England Tel is using auto-collect in Massachusetts.  You dial
0+number, then at the bong enter 11 for collect or 12 for third party
billing, then speak your name and enter the third party's number if
needed.  The voice prompt only tells you about 11 and 12 on calls from
pay phones, but they work everywhere.

Experimenting shows that you can hear the callee or third party being
asked to accept charges and hear their response, though they cannot
hear you, which is nice both to be sure you've got the right number,
and for the fraudulently inclined to hear them say that they'll call
you back.  Besides, it's hard to run up an enormous phone bill making
intra-lata calls in Mass.

Third party calls from pay phones call the third party to see if they
accept, while third party calls from home don't, presumably because
they have a number to charge back if the third party refuses payment.

If you don't say or dial something at the prompt, it still falls
through to a human operator which is important both for non-tone
phones and slightly odd calls.  When I call the business office in New
Jersey to turn on the phone service at the beach house, it answers
with a long spiel the end of which says that they accept collect
calls.  But since the first word isn't "Yes" an automated system can't
handle it.

Regards,

John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!esegue!johnl