Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 7 Jun 91 21:20:25 GMT From: Darren Alex Griffiths Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: What Will Turn the Telcos On Message-ID: Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 438, Message 1 of 9 Lines: 40 In article peterm@rwing.uucp (Peter Marshall) writes: > Phone Spots holds a patent on the concept of directly accessing an > originating client's transmission path during the audible ringing > portion of a call during call set-up and delivering an audible message > or signal to the caller between the ringing signals without delaying > the call progress. Expressed in its more likely and intended context, > this firm intends to launch a business of delivering ten second > recorded advertising messages between ringing signals simultaneously > on a potentially very large number of telephone lines. When offered > in the residential market, it is contemplated that subscribers will > receive a discount on their monthly bill for tolerating the ads. Ick!!! Next thing you know we'll be getting advertisements during calls to 911, people trying to hock "real Rolex" watches to us while we sit in an emergency room waiting for a doctor, lawyers sticking ads above the stretcher in ambulances, lord the opputunities are endless. I can just see calling 1-900-1RIP-OFF at $50 a second and getting ads for 1-900-GET-MUGGed while waiting for it to pickup. Actually, I don't see how this would work. There's a whole bunch of enduser equpiment and older, smaller switches that expect rings to be uniform. I'd get extremely agitated if my modem insisted that a line was busy because some dork was trying to sell me insurance between rings. Smart people word refuse to have the "service" on lines that are likely to receive modem calls, but what about switches at hotels and companies that do billing based on when someone answers by listening to the ring. I understand that newer switches don't do this and older switches also assume that someone answers after a certain time so they can deal with unusual rings, but it still seems like things would break in some cases. I'd bet that a few COCOTs would get confused as well ... hmm, this might not be a bad idea after all :-). Cheers, darren alex griffiths (415) 708-3294 dag@well.sf.ca.us