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From: bill%gauss@gatech.edu (bill)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Answer*Call in Atlanta Area
Message-ID: <15811@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 91 01:03:39 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 9, Message 7 of 8


According to my latest phone bill, SouthernBell is now offering
Answer*Call service for the Atlanta area.  The cost according to the
enclosure is $3.95 per month, but when I called the business office I
was quoted $6.95.  I'm not really interested in the service since I
already have an answering machine - and isn't that all Answer*Call
really is?  It's an answering machine that you pay Ma Bell for in
perpetuity.  So anyway, I can't account for the difference in the
quoted rates - I'd call the business office back to pin them down for
a rate if I was really interested.

In order to have the service, you must also subscribe to Call
Forwarding, No-Answer Transfer, and/or Busy Transfer.  You would
simply forward your phone to the Answer*Call voice mailbox (or is it
voicemail box? :-).

Seeing as how one can get an answering machine fairly cheap and with
the "message transfer" whereby the machine will call you at a specific
number to tell you that there is a message waiting, why would anyone
want to get this Answer*Call?  The only reason I can see for getting
it is to take your calls while you are on the phone and don't want
Call*Waiting to beep you or you don't have Call*Waiting in the first
place.  Oh yeah, supposedly many people can leave messages at once to
you with this service - in essence it is acting as a multi-line
answering machine.  That might be another reason to get it, so that if
a hundred people call you all at the same time none will get a busy
and all can leave a message right then and there.

I don't fault Southern Bell for offering the service, I just think
that an educated consumer would avoid the service.  


Bill Berbenich           Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 
uucp:  ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu


[Moderator's Note: It is a matter of individual taste and
application. I have voicemail from Centel here, and much prefer it
over conventional answering machines.   PAT]