bill%gauss@gatech.edu (bill) (01/05/91)
According to my latest phone bill, SouthernBell is now offering Answer*Call service for the Atlanta area. The cost according to the enclosure is $3.95 per month, but when I called the business office I was quoted $6.95. I'm not really interested in the service since I already have an answering machine - and isn't that all Answer*Call really is? It's an answering machine that you pay Ma Bell for in perpetuity. So anyway, I can't account for the difference in the quoted rates - I'd call the business office back to pin them down for a rate if I was really interested. In order to have the service, you must also subscribe to Call Forwarding, No-Answer Transfer, and/or Busy Transfer. You would simply forward your phone to the Answer*Call voice mailbox (or is it voicemail box? :-). Seeing as how one can get an answering machine fairly cheap and with the "message transfer" whereby the machine will call you at a specific number to tell you that there is a message waiting, why would anyone want to get this Answer*Call? The only reason I can see for getting it is to take your calls while you are on the phone and don't want Call*Waiting to beep you or you don't have Call*Waiting in the first place. Oh yeah, supposedly many people can leave messages at once to you with this service - in essence it is acting as a multi-line answering machine. That might be another reason to get it, so that if a hundred people call you all at the same time none will get a busy and all can leave a message right then and there. I don't fault Southern Bell for offering the service, I just think that an educated consumer would avoid the service. Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu [Moderator's Note: It is a matter of individual taste and application. I have voicemail from Centel here, and much prefer it over conventional answering machines. PAT]