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From: dpfay@vax1.tcd.ie
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Cardphones (was: Polish Payphones Revisited)
Message-ID: <15118@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 90 17:44:14 GMT
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In article <14999@accuvax.nwu.edu>, KLUB@maristb.bitnet (Richard Budd)
writes:

> While staying in Wroclaw (Breslau), there was a news item on TV that
> the city had installed the nation's first public telephones
> activitated through credit cards.  I couldn't understand the fine
> details because it was in Polish.  From what my host explained to me,
> the credit cards are issued by the telephone company and you insert
> them into a slot in the telephone and then dial the number.
 
Similar systems using pre-paid cards for public phones are common in
most European countries.  You buy a card, normally from a post office
or newsagent, which is worth a certain number of units.  The units are
deducted from the card as you speak.
 
There seem to be three systems in use:

* a 'smart card' with an in-built chip, used in France, Germany
and Ireland

* a holographic system used in Austria and by British Telecom in
the U.K.

* a magnetic card system used in Italy.  I think the Mercury phones
in the U.K. also use a magnetic system.
 
The use of card phones is becoming increasingly common: in France
coin-operated payphones (without a queue) can be hard to find.  I
think the reason for their absence in the U.S. is their dependence on
meter pulsing for billing.
 
> ... Telephone calls in
> Poland are an exercise in patience.
 
Just as a BTW, I had no problems making international calls from
payphones in Czechoslovakia this autumn.  Line quality to Ireland and
West Germany was excellent.


Deryck Fay   Department of Geography   
DPFAY@VAX1.TCD.IE  Trinity College  Dublin 2