joseph@milton.u.washington.edu (Joseph Chan) (03/19/91)
I can make a local phone call from my office to point A, B, or C. It would be a toll call from my home to A, B or C. But it is toll free from my home to my office. The phone in my office can transfer an incoming call to A, B or C, but it would require a human interaction (I can transfer any incoming call by push a special button on the phone and dial A, B or C. After connection, I would hang up the phone). Is there a simple device would make such transfer automatically? Joseph Chan joseph@milton.u.washington.edu University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 [Moderator's Note: If you have two lines in your office, you could use an inexpensive call-extender to do what you want. PAT]
ee@uunet.uu.net (Edward Elhauge) (03/25/91)
I have a similar problem as the point A, B and C caller. I would like
to have my calls forwarded to me to wherever I am at customer sites.
As most of my customers are large businesses with labs and such I am
not at the same desk or phone all day. I would like to call my home
office (which doesn't have a receptionist) and alter the call
forwarding to different numbers as I move about. I would also need to
call and disable call forwarding, which would let the answering
machine take it when I was in conference or debugging.
I could see that a cheap modem connected to my voice line and a DTMF
recognizer such as those available on PC voice mail cards would work.
I would prefer a smaller standalone version of this I wouldn't need to
invent the software for. Basically a DTMF recognizer that would
trigger a DTMF output after a time delay would work. Please e-mail and
I will summarize. Brand names please.
Edward Elhauge {hoptoad,uunet}!lever!ee ee@lever.com
Lever Industries San Francisco wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (03/26/91)
> I would like to have my calls forwarded to me to wherever I am at > customer sites. SBT has an ad in this Sunday's Herald extolling Remote Call Forwarding. As I read it, this is remotely programmable call forwarding. I didn't read the whole pitch, but I think it is really "Follow Me" forwarding. I don't know if you can remotely 'push' calls dialed to XXX to now appear at YYY, when you are at ZZZ. I suspect you can only 'pull' calls to your present location. [Moderator's Note: If it is the same Remote Call Forwarding we have here, (and I suspect it is) then it is NOT remotely programmable. In actuality, it is a line which terminates in a CO of your choice somewhere, and calls to that number are automatically forwarded to the phone number you specified when you ordered the service. You can NOT change it from hour to hour or day to day. Telco will charge you for a line (even though it terminates right in the CO and goes no-where, and they will charge you at DDD rates for each call forwarded. Maybe SWBT has a new product as you describe it, but I don't think so. PAT]
aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) (03/26/91)
In <telecom11.239.2@eecs.nwu.edu> the Moderator writes (in response to an article by David Lesher): > [Moderator's Note: If it is the same Remote Call Forwarding we have > here, (and I suspect it is) then it is NOT remotely programmable. In > actuality, it is a line which terminates in a CO of your choice > somewhere, and calls to that number are automatically forwarded to the > phone number you specified when you ordered the service. You can NOT > change it from hour to hour or day to day. Telco will charge you for a > line (even though it terminates right in the CO and goes no-where, and > they will charge you at DDD rates for each call forwarded. Maybe SWBT > has a new product as you describe it, but I don't think so. PAT] No, I'm afraid you're wrong, unless the SB ads are lying. The ads on the TV specifically claim that "wherever you are you can forward your calls to" so I suspect that David is right, that you can call in and get your number "pulled" to where you're calling from. I believe that the charge was something like $7.50 per month, presumably in addition to the regular charge for call forwarding ($4.50 month?) aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu [Moderator's Note: Well, I think that is wonderful. I'm surprised they beat Illinois Bell to it. IBT thought about this for awhile, deemed it to be 'problematic' and put it on the back burner. Now that SWBT has it going, maybe the other Bell telcos will follow close behind, as they usually do whenever one starts a new innovation. PAT]