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From: clay@swbatl.sbc.com (Patrick Clay - 529-7760)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Leaving Brief Messages With Free Collect Calls
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Date: 11 Sep 90 12:45:46 GMT
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Reply-To: Patrick Clay - 529-7760 <clay@swbatl.sbc.com>
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In article <11898@accuvax.nwu.edu> mailrus!uflorida!rm1!bapat
(Subodh Bapat) writes:

>I have a feeling that this may not always work the same way, depending
>on the CO switches in the circuit, especially long distance where
>multiple switches are involved. The reason is that the number of rings
>heard by the caller is not necessarily the number of rings generated
>on the called line.

>I have had occasions where people who called me have asked me,
>surprised, "How come you answered even before the phone rang at all?"
>when I had distinctly heard the phone ring twice at my end.

>Any switch gurus care to shed any light on this?

The Moderator`s note below this (edited for space) was correct but
wasn't complete. Another reason that the rings are not synchronized is
to get around the problem described above -- people trying to outsmart
the phone system and not get charged for a phone call. Sometimes you
can tell people to "wait for two rings" then hang up before they
answer, but the vast majority of times the phone has rung at least
once and maybe twice before the caller hears anything. The ringing the
caller hears is simply another tone like "busy" or "reorder" and has
nothing whatsoever to do with the actual phone ringing at the other
end.


SBC TRI
clay@swbatl:   Patrick Clay - 529-7760