gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore) (08/01/89)
I recently got a little booklet from AT&T entitled "The AT&T Guide for New, Moving, and Growing Businesses" (you can get one from AT&T, POB 7401, London, KY 40742). It includes half a page on every service you can get from AT&T (as well as an ad for PBX's and their 386 boxes!). One service I'd never heard of was Call Manager. The service is simple and great. When dialing a long distance call, if you follow the phone number with 1 to 4 digits, the call will be billed to that 'account'. On your phone bill, the calls are sorted by accounts. The service is free to all AT&T long distance customers. This is perfect for shared households, of course. If you remember to dial the account number, it goes on your part of the shared bill. If you forget, it goes in the section that gets looked over by everybody. I haven't seen the bill that results, but I presume it subtotals the calls by account number as well as sorting them, making it easy to figure what you owe. I'm planning to use the service for my uucp calls too. I can just assign an account number to each uucp site my machine calls. The calls will be sorted and subtotaled by site, making it easy to see what sites hoptoad is burning the most money calling. The service is available now in the Pacific Northwest and they're turning it on all around the US; call +1 800 782 8801, the "Call Manager Hotline", to find out when it works in your state. Unfortunately, the recording does not list California, so I called AT&T to find out when I could get the service. Apparently there is some problem with the Cal PUC, though the AT&T publication said "AT&T Call Manager service will be available nationwide by the end of 1989" in large type. If anyone knows more about the California problem, please let me know.
jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com (05/07/91)
Replying to an ongoing thread, recently added to by Sander J. Rabinowitz <0003829147@mcimail.com>: > Is this a new service that's starting up only in certain geographical > areas? The above dialing sequence produced the usual AT&T calling card > prompt, and the extra four digits appear to be discarded. > [Moderator's Note: When I used it here (0 + NPA + 7D - pause for tone > - enter 15xx), the call was processed, and the billing came to my line > the following month with notations on the bill entitled 'account code > xx', where 'xx' was the two digits I had entered after the '15' when > making the call. It appears nothing further is required to use this > service. PAT] A quick check of the latest AT&T sales brief, dated 2/7/91, shows that our Moderator is once again correct. Here's a summary of what I found: - No sign-up is required. If the service is available in your area, you can start using it immediately. - The service can use two or four digits; as Pat described it, the format would be 0 + NPA + 7D (tone) 15xx OR 15xxxx. - It's available to customers using DDD, PRO WATS, or Reach Out America if the customer is either directly billed by AT&T, or by a former Bell Operating Company. Call Manager is apparently not available in GTE or other independent company areas. EXCEPTION: NYNEX and SNET only provide Call Manager billing to PRO WATS customers. The biggest drawback to the service that we small business salesdrones have seen is that the codes are optional. Many of our customers would like to use forced authorization codes instead. Jack Dominey AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA v: 404-496-6925 AT&T Mail: !dominey or bsga05!jdominey