rees@pisa.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) (06/26/91)
I thought COCOTs were bad until I ran into a GTE payphone the other day in a bar in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The info card originally said that long distance service was provided by AT&T, but this had been crossed out and "MCI" had been written above it. 700 numbers were not accepted but I found that the default carrier was neither AT&T nor MCI, but Sprint. The funny part came when I tried to place a call with my calling card to Clare, Michigan. I got a recording saying that my card number was invalid. So why did I get a recording saying my card number was no good, even though I know that it is? Turns out the problem was that Clare is a local call, not long distance. Depositing two dimes solved the problem.
Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@brl.mil> (06/27/91)
Well, at least your call was 20 cents instead of the outrageous COCOT charges that pop up on phone bills. But the Bell Atlantic pay phones I have seen on the east coast say "Out of Change?" and go on to explain that you can use a calling card to place local calls. By the way, local calls with a calling card have these instructions: 0 + NPA + 7D if the area is set up for NXX prefixes. 0 + 7D if it is set up for NNX only. (But if it's for a local call to another NPA, I think you have to use 0 + NPA + 7D.) Speaking of which, doesn't 215 area in PA still advertise 0 + 7D on its Bell Atlantic payphones under the "Out of Change?" message? This is supposed to change to 0 + NPA + 7D, for the same reason that 1 + 7D is changing to 7D for long distance within 215.