Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: pwt1%ukc.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: British PhoneCard question Message-ID: Date: 30 Mar 89 10:53:31 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Lines: 42 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 117, message 1 of 8 In article decom@dgp.toronto.edu writes: >In Britain, you pay by time for even local calls, so you tend to go >through alot of coins. And the coins are bigger and heavier as well. >The phonecards save you the frustration of running out of coins during >a call, the frustration of having your calls interrupted every minute >by "more coins please" noises, and the frustration of sewing up holes in >your pockets. Almost all new BT coin-op phones are of the modern type that allow one to accumulate a credit prior to and at any time time during a call thus no longer are you prompted for coins every minute (as did the older Pay-On-Answer types). These phones take most British coins, including 50p and One Pound coins, useful for long and international calls. Incidently, BT has recently introduced a direct dial calling card service available from most payphones and any touch tone compatable phone. >The cards come in denominations ranging from the equivalent of $3 to about >$100. So you buy one which you know will last you a reasonable amount >of time. They are particularly useful for long distance calls, because >you get the customer-dialled rate without feeding a continuous stream of >coins into the phone. The phone cards are not magnetic but rely on infra-red holograms printed on the card. There is one hologram per unit and they are destroyed as the units are consummed. There is no way a card can be recharged or prevented from being erased (people have tried, painting the card with nail varnish being one method used .. doesn't work). Mercury Communications have a range of payphones in railway stations etc which take standard credit cards and their own version of the pre-payed card. Their card does not seem to use holograms or magnetic stripes. It stores credits as pounds and pence and can resolve values exactly. Anyone know how this card works? Britain is the world's largest user of holographic phonecards, but Japan is by far the largest user of any type odf phone card, which are in their case standard magnetic. I read that in japan they are used as currency, so much so that the government there is investigating phone cards effect on the economy! Peter Thurston