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From: dhepner@hpcuhc.cup.hp.com (Dan Hepner)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Coin Calls From Narita
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Date: 20 Sep 90 23:55:38 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 664, Message 5 of 13


 From: vic@cs.arizona.edu (Vicraj T. Thomas)

>I was in the transit lounge of the Tokyo airport this summer
>and wanted to call somebody in the city.  I didn't have any yen with
>me but I did have my AT&T calling card. [...]

Here's a story from Narita (Tokyo International).

I changed flights from a direct from Seoul to San Francisco, to a
flight with a stopover in Narita, and a different arrival time.  I was
being met on arrival, and had to phone the modified arrival time home.

There were pay phones all around, at least one of which was labeled
with an "international" designation.  Right above it was the dialing
sequence for some 900# to get weather in New York, so you could tell
what digits to dial.

I _knew_ that calls from Japan were expensive, so I got $10 worth of
Yen (1200 then) and prepared to spend it all on a quick call home.
After getting to the phone, I started to put one Y100 coin (88c) into
the slot, but a Japanese person nearby pointed to the sign suggesting
that it took only Y10 to use the phone.  Well, I went ahead and put in
my Y100 coin in, dialed as suggested, it rang ... normal 45 second
conversation ... hangup, all the time waiting for a demand for another
Y1000 or so.  It never happened.  The whole call cost 88c.

Now what happened there?  Do coin calls from Japan really only cost
Y100?  Did I somehow rip them off?  For all I know, I should have
listened to the local and only used Y10.


Dan Hepner
dhepner@hpda.cup.hp.com