jalsop@uunet.uu.net (John Alsop) (03/28/91)
I just spent a week's vacation in Florida. The house we rented had a "Charge-a-Phone" instead of an ordinary telephone. It looked pretty much like a normal phone set, but had various labels with instructions for use, etc. The fine print on the phone said that all long distance charges made from the phone would be rated by a company called ITI (in Dallas I think). It also said "Dial *1 to get 10288 access". Was this the home version of a COCOT? (I didn't get to actually use it as it was broken, and the house rental agency had it replaced with a regular phone). John Alsop Sea Change Corporation 6695 Millcreek Drive, Unit 8 Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5N 5R8 Tel: 416-542-9484 Fax: 416-542-9479 UUCP: ...!uunet!attcan!seachg!jalsop
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (03/30/91)
John Alsop <seachg!jalsop@uunet.uu.net> writes: > I just spent a week's vacation in Florida. The house we rented had a > "Charge-a-Phone" instead of an ordinary telephone. It looked pretty > much like a normal phone set, but had various labels with instructions > for use, etc. There is a diner in Los Angeles (the name escapes me) that has a phone at every table. They are "genuine Bell" phones and each is connected to CO dial tone. These are, in effect, Charge-a-Calls. You can place 800, 10XXX, 950, 0+ (goes AT&T), but not local calls (except as 0+). A group of us had dinner there a number of months ago and it was great entertainment playing with the phone while waiting for our meals to arrive! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: On I-55 from here to St. Louis all the food/gasoline stops along the way have a similar arrangement. At each booth in the restaurant, a wall-phone is hooked to a one-way outgoing line. All calls from the phone must be zero-plussed or 10xxx zero-plussed with billing on a collect, third number or telco credit card basis. PAT]
chapman@alc.com (Brent Chapman) (04/02/91)
In <telecom11.256.5@eecs.nwu.edu> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > There is a diner in Los Angeles (the name escapes me) that has a phone > at every table. They are "genuine Bell" phones and each is connected > to CO dial tone. These are, in effect, Charge-a-Calls. You can place > 800, 10XXX, 950, 0+ (goes AT&T), but not local calls (except as 0+). > [Moderator's Note: On I-55 from here to St. Louis all the food/gasoline > stops along the way have a similar arrangement. At each booth in the > restaurant, a wall-phone is hooked to a one-way outgoing line. All > calls from the phone must be zero-plussed or 10xxx zero-plussed with > billing on a collect, third number or telco credit card basis. PAT] If you look at the customers at these joints, you'll probably see a relatively large number of long-haul independent truckers. These phones are commonly found at restaurants along Interstate highways. The drivers use them for such things as arranging delivery details of their current loads, lining up future loads, and simply calling home. I believe that many of them will allow incoming calls, on the assumption that if the driver is sitting there waiting for a call back, he's likely to order something to eat or drink while he waits. Brent Chapman Ascent Logic Corporation Computer Operations Manager 180 Rose Orchard Way, Suite 200 chapman@alc.com San Jose, CA 95134 Phone: 408/943-0630
Tad.Cook@ssc.uucp (04/06/91)
In article <telecom11.256.5@eecs.nwu.edu>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > There is a diner in Los Angeles (the name escapes me) that has a phone > at every table. They are "genuine Bell" phones and each is connected > to CO dial tone. These are, in effect, Charge-a-Calls. You can place > 800, 10XXX, 950, 0+ (goes AT&T), but not local calls (except as 0+). > A group of us had dinner there a number of months ago and it was great > entertainment playing with the phone while waiting for our meals to > arrive! > [Moderator's Note: On I-55 from here to St. Louis all the food/gasoline > stops along the way have a similar arrangement. At each booth in the > restaurant, a wall-phone is hooked to a one-way outgoing line. All > calls from the phone must be zero-plussed or 10xxx zero-plussed with > billing on a collect, third number or telco credit card basis. PAT] I got a call recently from a guy who had purchased "a box" from a company in Florida that converted a standard cordless phone into a coinless private pay phone. He was planning on installing these in truck stops, where the weary trucker would request a handset from the waitress, who would bring it to him, and he would place credit card calls. The box allegedly had some credit card billing system where it would dial up some central AOS location. My caller was suspicious because this service was supposed to be provided by the distributor of the box, but the box seemed to let all calls go through. I told him that I didn't think this scheme was a good idea. Anyone with a VHF scanner could sit outside the truck stop listening to the 46 MHz signal from the base unit, and easily decode the credit card numbers. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @N7ENT.#WWA.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET: ...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP