Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: boberg@june.cs.washington.edu (Bruce Oberg) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: British PhoneCard question Message-ID: Date: 30 Mar 89 16:53:39 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Bruce Oberg Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle Lines: 25 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 2 of 8 The British Telecom PhoneCard is an interesting little gizmo. You buy one for X pounds and the card is then "worth" X/10 ten pence pieces. You insert it in a special PhoneCard phone and ten pence pieces are "removed" from the card during your call. A display on the phone keeps you informed of how much "money" is left. When you hang up, the card is released by the phone. As with other british phones, if you run out of money, your talk path is disconnected then and there until you insert more. Unfortunately, most PhoneCard phones do not accept coins (and usually don't have lines waiting for them at the train station); you have to insert a new card when yours runs out. The way "money" is kept track of on the card is *not* through a magstripe. Special markings on the front of the card specify how much the card was originally worth, and while you're using it, tiny tick marks are made in the upper right corner of the front of the card. I've always wondered how easy counterfeighting the cards would be; I've never heard of anyone getting caught doing so. Usually, ten pence lasts a couple of minutes on the phone. One time I used my card to call back to the U.S. and it was real fun to watch the ten pence pieces click down about one every five seconds. bruce oberg