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From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Phone Cards
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Date: 27 Sep 89 16:40:46 GMT
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In article  cgch!wtho@mcsun.eu.net
(Tom Hofmann) writes:
>What I would like to know:  Isn't there a country (or LDC in the US)
>where phone calls can be paid be regular, internationally accepted
>credit cards (Visa, Master Card, American Express, etc.)? ...

Here in the US, some pay phones, particularly those in airports, do in fact
take regular credit cards.  They have a slot through which you run the card
so it can read the number magnetically, then you dial the number, then if
the call is out of the local region, you push a button corresponding to the
LD carrier you want to use, with typical choices being MCI, Sprint, and ITT.
AT&T has their own distinctive looking card caller phones that used to take
only AT&T's own card but now are also starting to take Amex and bank cards.
In all these cases, the phone transmits the credit card number in a torrent
of DTMF tones, so I suppose that if you knew the protocol you could type in
the card number yourself.  Entering a bank card number at the time when you
would enter your phone card number doesn't work.

I also once saw a COCOT at a car rental place in Denver that let you type in
a bank card number yourself, and claimed that the charge for doing so was
cheaper than that for a telco calling card.  I can believe that; telcos are
reputed to charge 75 cents apiece for billing OCC calls but I know that a
bank charges more like 35 cents for an electronically submitted Master Card
or Visa charge.

The Airfones found on too many airplanes these days only take regular credit
cards, not phone cards, but at $2.50/minute and terrible voice quality they're
only for the desperate.


John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, Levine@YALE.edu
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe