Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: British PhoneCard question Message-ID: Date: 24 Mar 89 20:22:47 GMT Sender: news@vector.UUCP Lines: 13 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 108, message 2 of 9 What happens when the PhoneCard you are using runs out of credit in the midst of a call? Are you given a "grace period" to let you pull out the old card (and drop it on the floor of the booth! :-) and stick in a new one? Or is your call summarily terminated? Could you continue by feeding in coins if you don't have another charged-up PhoneCard? Is this just magstripe encoding? I would think there would be a brisk trade in underground magstripe card writers and illicitly-credited PhoneCards if that is the case. Or is this a special, non-standard magstripe encoding or format, so that magstripe equipment on the surplus or commercial market won't write or read it? Regards, Will Martin