samho@larry.cs.washington.edu (Sam Ho) (10/06/89)
I was at a conference near Monticello, Illinois (20 miles west of Champaign and about 150 miles south of [Telecom Headquarters]). The pay phone there (Allerton House) was of the post-pay variety. I assume it was on a SxS switch, since when I tone-dialed 0-NPA-NNX-XXXX I got an extended length of silence, with faint clicking as it pulsed out the digits, followed by clunk! Bong! A T and T. (As a side note, it apparently still uses the cry-baby style of not-a-number signal, too.) The oddity is that there was a typed sticker noting that to use other long distance carriers, dial the 6-digit access code or 0+10 digits, and advise the operator of the handling. I've never heard of 6-digit access codes, and trying to dial 102220 got me a reorder before I finished. Dialing 950-1022 gets a reorder, too. Besides, I've never heard of Equal Access on a SxS switch. My best guess (I didn't try it out) is that since I think post-pay phones work by cutting the outbound audio until either the totalizer signals payment or a zero is dialed, maybe the zero bounces the call out to a tandem, so that 0-10xxx reaches other carriers. Or maybe it's just dial 0-NPA-NNX-XXX, wait for the operator, and say "Use MCI, please." Any thoughts? Incidentally, I think this is not an IBT area, since the phone was an AE device. Champaign itself is IBT, though. Sam Ho samho@larry.cs.washington.edu
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 09-Oct-1989 0853) (10/09/89)
>Besides, I've never heard of Equal Access on a SxS switch.
The 508-448 C.O. in Groton, Mass. (and I suspect all SxS C.O.s in
Mass.) allows you to dial 10xxx codes. Implementation of equal
access in SxS is quite easy, since "1" as the first digit drops you
right into an intelligent toll switch. Whether carrier-pick is
implemented or not, which would require the customer database to exist
in the intelligent switch (which gets ANI from the step), I can't tell
you.
/john