Path: utzoo!attcan!cmtl01!matrox!uvm-gen!uunet!lll-winken!ames!netsys!vector!nobody From: johnl@ima.ISC.COM Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Pacific Bell Calling Card Blunder Message-ID: Date: 24 Jan 89 04:15:58 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 21 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Originally-From: harvard!ima.ISC.COM!johnl (John R. Levine) X-Submissions-To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 26, message 3 In article john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US (John Owens) writes: > >The only real difference I know of, besides the International Number >being on the AT&T card, is that AT&T card reader phones (with the >video displays) won't take BOC cards, and that the card reader phones >placed by BOCs don't claim to take AT&T cards. The BOC phones increasingly do take all of the LD carrier cards. The phones at the Denver and Los Angeles airports in fact take AT&T, MCI, and Sprint cards even though the illustrations on the phones are of Visa and Amex cards. High time, too. I was at the Cleveland airport last week and about half of the phones there are a strange hybrid -- it's a regular AT&T coin phone with the dial replaced by a thing about three times the size which includes a tone pad, a mag stripe reader, and a bunch of extra buttons probably intended for carrier selection but currently programmed for 411 and 911. I was unable to make any of these card readers accept any card at all, be it AT&T, Sprint, or Visa. At least the lack of access is equal. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 { bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something You're never too old to have a happy childhood.