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From: johnl@ima.UUCP.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.telecom
Subject: Worst idea of the week
Message-ID: <8609090653.AA18695@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 5-Sep-86 18:26:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8609090653.AA18695
Posted: Fri Sep  5 18:26:18 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Sep-86 20:44:20 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: ima!johnl (John R. Levine)
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 21
Approved: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu

From the September 1 Network World, excerpted without permission:

Advertisers may read out and grab callers if startup-up firm has its way
...
A start-up company here has filed for a patent on a concept that would enable
telephone companies to make money by selling advertisements that callers would
hear while waiting for calls to be answered.
[They field tested it in Sullivan, MO, last year.]
With $oft-Ads, telephone companies could sell roughly four-second spot
advertisements that would be injected between the rings callers hear while
waiting for the called party to answer the phone.

They go on to suggest that monthly connect fees might be waived for people who
volunteered to listed to the ads.  A lot of the stuff in the patents is
involved in injecting the ads at the caller's exchange, even though it'd be
a lot easier to inject them where the ring was generated.

I can hardly wait:   ---RING--- Eat Twinkies! ---RING--- ...
-- 
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.EDU