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From: motcid!ellisndh@uunet.uu.net (Dell H. Ellison)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Leaving Brief Messages With Free Collect Calls
Message-ID: <12181@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Sep 90 21:48:21 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 648, Message 4 of 11


In article <11898@accuvax.nwu.edu>, mailrus!uflorida!rm1!bapat
(Subodh Bapat) writes:

-> 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?

What you hear (called 'ringback' in the telephony industry) does not
directly correspond to the ringing of the phone on the other end of
the line.

The ringback tone is just put there to let you know that the phone is
actually ringing on the other end.  When you hear a 'ring', it
probably is not at the same time that it is ringing on the other end.
I don't know how people supposedly send messages by letting the phone
ring a certain number of times.