bruner@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu (John Bruner) (02/08/90)
Last week my (new) wife and I were at Disney World in Florida. Disney apparently has their own telephone company. On a couple of occasions I placed some long-distance calls from our hotel room. There was no mention of their long-distance carrier in any hotel literature, so I dialed 0+NPA+NXX-XXXX. There was a ringing tone, which was "answered" by a "ka-bong", to which I entered my calling card number. After a pause, it said "thank you for using Vista United." At this point I hung up and tried 10288+0+, but that gave me a fast busy, so I called the front desk and asked what the long distance carrier was. They told me it was AT&T, so I asked them why it mentioned Vista United. "Oh, that's the company which provides local service, just like Illinois Bell." I was somewhat dubious of this, but I decided to go for it anyway. By next month I should know whether I really had AT&T or whether an unpleasant surprise will be lurking in a future bill. I suppose that I should have placed the long-distance calls from the AT&T exhibit in Epcot Center. John Bruner Center for Supercomputing R&D, University of Illinois bruner@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu (217) 244-4476
tronix@polari.UUCP (David Daniel) (02/09/90)
It may very well be that thr person you spoke to at the hotel was half
right. It's possible that the Ka-bong was produced by a CPE box
designed just for that purpose. Disney very likely has alot of CPE
wire and switching equipment handling internal and local calls. Their
Ka-bonger (aka "Bong Box") could read your digits and access the
appropriate carrier. Mitel makes a lot of dialers, one of which
supplies a bong tone and is highly programmable.
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love & understanding?"
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