Busy Connect

Thu Jan 28 06:46:12 UTC 1999

On Wed, Jan 27, 1999 at 09:42:11PM +0000, William Allen Simpson wrote:
> > From: "Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol at nacs.net>
> > Ameritech offers the same service, and I've only been charged for the times
> > I've actually used the feature. If I hang up, I don't get charged. I have to
> > believe BellSouth works the same way, although I could be wrong.
> >
> Ameritech doesn't offer it here in Michigan, so I don't know what
> problems there are.
> 
> In Mississippi, it works like this: Busy tone is replaced by a voice
> message saying something like "Your party is currently busy.  If you
> would like to call again, press 1 or hold the line."

This is how it works in Cleveland.

You dial and get a busy signal. Computer voice plays over the busy signal,
saying "Let Automatic CallBack redial for you. To use this feature, at
a cost of seventy-five cents, press 1."

> If you hold the line too long (30 seconds?), or you redial a number with
> a 1 in it (several of our hunt groups have a 1 in them), you get charged
> $.75...

Yeah. That's stupid. Ameritech doesn't give you that option, thankfully.
And... you get the busy signal *first*, a couple seconds before the voice,
which should be enough time for modems to detect a Busy. 

-- 
Steve Sobol sjsobol at nacs.net (AKA support at nacs.net and abuse at nacs.net)

"Can you look out the window, without your shadow getting in the way"
   --Sarah McLachlan - "Building a Mystery"