OLE@SRI-NIC.ARPA (Ole Jorgen Jacobsen) (01/25/86)
The pulse metering method used in the UK (as described by Lauren) is used to the customers advantage in payphones where "you pays for what you gets" (as the old saying goes). When you make a long-distance or international call, the pulse rate changes, so that your 5 or 10 pence doesn't last as long, BUT you can still make a call anywhere which is nice. I hate having to deposit huge amounts for the "initial 3 minutes", when I make 20 second calls to say "I have arrived" or whatever from US payphones. (Example: San Francisco to Palo Alto: $.45, or New York to Barbados: $6.20). The latest in pay-phones in the UK is the PhoneCard, you buy cards which come in various values, 20 units, 40 units and so on. (One "unit" = 10 pence). These cards are used on special phones which display the remaining units on your card (I believe they are stored magnetically). Again you pay for what you get and you're not faced with additional calling card or credit card overhead charges. Best of all, you don't need change! While I favor itemized billing, don't forget that it costs a great deal of money to install that type of billing equipment and that the operating conditions have not been as "market driven" in the UK as they have in the US. Things are changing however and you *can* get itemized billing in certain areas of the country. Ole -------
GUMBY@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (David Vinayak Wallace) (01/27/86)
Date: Sat 25 Jan 86 10:11:28-PST
From: Ole Jorgen Jacobsen <OLE at SRI-NIC.ARPA>
The latest in pay-phones in the UK is the PhoneCard, you buy cards
which come in various values, 20 units, 40 units and so on. (One
"unit" = 10 pence). These cards are used on special phones which
display the remaining units on your card (I believe they are
stored magnetically). Again you pay for what you get and you're
not faced with additional calling card or credit card overhead
charges. Best of all, you don't need change!
They have these in Japan. Unfortunately, there aren't many phone
which accept them, so at this point they're more of a novelty. The
NTT man I was visiting in the south of Japan was amused that I used
one to call him from Tokyo.
Another fact of about using Japanese pay phones is that, due to the
shortage of international lines, pay phones are dropped to the bottom
priority for (international) outgoing trunks. Worse yet, the pay
phones themselves are specialised -- only the green ones (the same
ones which accept the cards) will make international calls. So in
effect, if you want to make an international call from a pay phone in
Japan, do it at night from the centre of a big city.