Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: piet@cs.ruu.nl (Piet van Oostrum) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Some notes on the UK phone system Message-ID: Date: 28 Mar 89 11:09:34 GMT Sender: news@vector.UUCP Reply-To: piet@cs.ruu.nl Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Utrecht, Holland Lines: 24 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 113, message 3 of 8 In article , dhesi@bsu-cs (Rahul Dhesi) writes: `In article OLE@csli.stanford.edu (Ole J. Jacobsen) writes: `>My most favorite aspect of the Britsih phone system is the PhoneCard. `>...Put one in the special PhoneCard phones `>and dial away *anywhere*. There is no minimum charge, and you can `>talk until the "money" runs out (1 unit = 10p). `This seems to be of dubious value. What is the difference between `buying a phone card from a grocery store and then using it in a `telephone, as opposed to just putting the money into the telephone `directly? This just seems to add an extra step. It makes sense if you dial an international call. With coins you will not do much more than pushing coins. Moreover, the British pay phones have the terrible habit of disabling the voice channel momentarily while you insert a coin (maybe they have better ones now?). I think the major advantage is for the phone company. They don't have to collect the coins and there is no chance of theft of the money from the phone. -- Piet van Oostrum, Dept of Computer Science, University of Utrecht Padualaan 14, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands Telephone: +31-30-531806. piet@cs.ruu.nl (mcvax!hp4nl!ruuinf!piet)