johnl@think.UUCP (John R. Levine) (04/29/87)
AT&T has an amazing new service called USA Direct to encourage people to call home from overseas. In Australia, Denmark, France, Holland, Great Britain, and parts of West Germany, there is a special toll-free number you can dial and you get an AT&T operator in the U.S., who will help you complete a call into the U.S. You can call collect or use your calling card. That's pretty handy, particularly if you've ever tried to make a collect call from France (dial 19-pause-33-1, wait, get an operator, tell him that you want to make un appel PCV aux Etats Unies, give him the details; fine, he says, I'll call you back in 30 minutes.) For serious cultural imperialists, though, in Antigua, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Panama, the Philippines, Spain, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and Trinidad/Tobago, they've installed special USA Direct pay phones in places like hotels, airports, and cruise ports that you can only use to call back to the U.S. Call 1-800-874-4000, Ext. 300, for further details. The current issue of Frequent Flyer magazine has some handy wallet cards explaining the service. John Levine, ima!johnl or Levine@YALE.something