In a message dated Fri, 10 Feb 2006 17:57:48 -0500, T writes:>
While 9xxx was the most common, it was by no means universal. There were step offices and some 5XB where the 9xxx group didn't exist. Also for historical reasons the 9xxx group may have been assigned to regular customers. This was particularly true in C.O. locations where there were several prefixes, all the 9xxx numbers being put in one prefix, leaving 9xxx numbers with other prefixes for normal assignment to customers.
The Rate & Route Information would include "check 9," or "check 2" or whatever, depending on the location. This meant a call to the inward operator a t the destination operator to determine whether or not a
9xxx (or 2xxx, or whatever) was a coin box.Collect calls to coin stations were permitted until 10 or 15 years ago.
In my brief experiences filling in on the switchboard during a strike, I only encounted two such cases. If the call was accepted on a cash basis, the customer was told to hang up and then you called the destination inward operator to call the coin box and supervise the collection of the coins. In the other case, it was a person-to-person calls chasing someone up the Mississippi River, three or four places giving another number in a marine location to try, until the called party was reached at a coin phone somewhere along the river. As soon as I announced the call (and prepared to go through the same fol-de-rol) the called customer said something like "I'll accept it on credit card xxxxxxxx."
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you say it is no longer being done, I will take your word for it. The one instance of that I recall from many years ago, the local operator had to place the call via the inward operator in that town. She called inward and asked for 'assistance in collecting coins from a pay station'. The inward operator called the pay phone, got the approval of the person she was speaking with to collect from him, but then he, the person accepting the call and the charges said to inward, "I will pay with my calling card; please split the connection while I give my number." The operator split the connection, the card number was passed, then the connection re-opened. PAT]