John Korb wrote:
>
> (joining the topic somewhat late)
>
> Someone described how local vs long distance calls are (should be?)
> determined by the CO switches.  Hmmm.  I have phones with three
> different exchange codes in my home.  The phone company (Bell
> Atlantic) issued the numbers at different times, and apparently in
> different exchanges because of a lack of numbers in my home exchange.
> A quick look at the phone numbers of my neighbors show seven
> different exchanges - all in use on one street!

If by 'exchange' you mean the prefix 3 digits, I'd believe that in a
heartbeat.  My original NNX diatribe was that the first two digits
gets you to a switch office, the 3rd digit is a local exchange.  So I
would buy up to 10 (zero through nine) prefixes for your neighborhood.

> I like the idea of pressing "#" after dialing the minimum number of
> digits.

You can think of the "#" as a "carriage-return" with the default
behavior being a timed read (no keystrokes in x seconds, you must be
finished).  There are actually 4 more "keys" on the telephone keypad
that you don't have, the signalling standard for the touch-tone keypad
is actually a 4x4 matrix (we're going hex one way or another).

> While on the topic of phones, caller-ID is both an advantage and
> disadvantage, mainly because of the way telemarketers don't provide
> it, and collect and calling card calls don't provide it.

Not around here; the calling phone number still comes up, though for
caller-ID plus the "name" may simply be "Pay Phone".

> Thanks to a special caller-ID box with blocking (obtained at a local
> branch of a nation-wide electronics parts store), all "Out-Of-Area"
> calls to my home receive are answered by the box at the 2nd ring and
> given the message "This number will not accept your call."  This
> nicely disposes with the telemarketers.

Available from the local Bell here (BellSouth) as "anonymous call
rejection", enabled with *77.  You can have your outgoing calls
default to be "anonymous" as well, *82 turns your ID back on if
your called party is blocking anonymous calls.

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>