On 02/04/2012 17:03, Stephen Furley wrote:
On Apr 2, 4:28 pm, wrote:
On Apr 2, 2:43 pm, wrote:

Would you know if the British railway system ever had radio phones for
use by passengers as premier American trains did?

Yes, but not terribly widespread, and not used very much because of
the cost of calls.

They were introduced at about the same time that the original analogue
cellular 'phones were starting to become generally available, but not
many people had them. The ones I saw, on the 125 mph Diesel High
Speed Trains, probably around the early to mid '80s took only BT
Phonecards, not cash. Reception was rather poor at that time in many
areas.

Also, at one time almost every US train station had a payphone, but
they are rare to find now. Some stations still have them mostly to
serve as an emergency phone (no charge to call police), though of
course one can still make a normal call. Overall, pay phones have
become rather rare in the US thanks to cell phones, and cheaper phone
rates.

Do British railway stations still have pay phones?

Many do, including some surprisingly small unstaffed ones. Many
railway stations now also have CCTV and help point speakerphones to
contact the CCTV operator for assistance or to obtain train times.
CCTV operators can also make announcements to unstaffed stations over
'long line public address' in the event of service disruption or to
challenge vandals etc.

Owain

On some stations there's a railway 'phone in a metal box, with a
notice saying that it can be used by passengers to contact the
signaller to obtain information about train running. I've seen these
at stations on the Settle-Carlisle line, which runs through some very
remote areas for example.

There are still a surprising number of BT telephone kiosks around in
the street, despite the fact that they seem to get very little use
these days.

I'm sure that BT would be rid of them in a heartbeat, if they could get
away with it, though they are required to keep them as a public service.

I visited Finland a few years back, after a ten-year absence, and I
noticed that there was not one payphone to be found.

On 03/04/2012 19:23, wrote:
On Apr 3, 4:13 am, Neil wrote:
On Apr 2, 6:56 pm, wrote:

It used to be the ticket agent at a US station would call the
dispatcher to get train status. But now some won't bother.

The sort of stations we're talking about won't have any staff at all,
let alone a ticketing agent...

In the US some carriers are installed electronic displays at
unattended stations to provide information. One time at a SEPTA
station the indicator said the train was on-time, but there was no
train. As time went on, the indicator said the train was late--but
simply the number of minutes past due. It appeared to be simply
counting upward from the schedule as opposed to indicating the actual
projected late arrival time.


Also, computerized PA [public address] announcements are used.
Several times at a SEPTA station they announced a train would be
delayed just when the training was pulling into the station--on time.

On the River Line, sometimes the automated 'next station' announcement
gets ahead of itself and announces a station further down the line
rather than the one coming up next.


It seems that computerized indications, which are 'supposed' to be
more accurate, are less accurate than manual arrangements.

On the NYC subway, the automated professional-voice announcements
sound classy at first, but after a while becoming very irritating,
kind of like being stuck in a weird 1960s sci-fi movie.


You've never heard of the North London Line, I take it, with its ghost
trains. The display board would indicate when the next train was due,
and then suddenly the train would simply disappear off the display as it
was getting close to arrival at your station.

Think of it as the Bermuda Triangle for trains.

On 02/04/2012 21:39, Owain wrote:
On Apr 2, 5:55 pm, wrote:
I've been told it's cheaper to arrange for a traditional pay phone at
a station as opposed to "help point speakerphone". The railway has to
pay for either one.

Yes, but the stations already get CCTV, long line PA, and information
screens, on the railway's internal IP network. The marginal cost of
the help points is quite small and they integrate into the other
systems in ways that a public payphone wouldn't (eg when the help
point is activated the CCTV camera automatically zooms to it and the
help operator can see the video). They are also less likely to be
targeted by vandals than payphones holding cash.

http://www.adt.co.uk/commercial-secu...ail-case-study

The cost of a local call in the US at a pay phone today is 50c. Long
distance rates vary greatly, and if a caller is not careful, can be
$25.00 for a quick call, which is ridiculous.

On a BT public payphone 60p minimum fee gets you 30 minutes, then 10p
for each subsequent 15 minutes or portion thereof, to a landline
anywhere in UK.

Owain


So, what is the cost on public payphones in the Channel Islands or the
Isle of Man?

On 01-Apr-12 12:19, wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:53 am, "
wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.
The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.
I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.
Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)-

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code.

Two area codes: 905 for Mexico City and 706 for northwest Mexico.

That ended in 1991.

Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to make it part of NANP.

Apparently, they preferred having a country code (+52) of their own,
like the rest of Latin America (World Zone 5) rather than be a vassal
state of the imperialist gringos that run the NANP (World Zone 1).

And, if Mexico _had_ fully joined the NANP, would that imply the rest of
Central America should as well, as well as the Spanish-speaking
countries in the Caribbean? Why not South America too?

In practice, +1 is for English- and French-speaking countries, and +5 is
for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. There is significantly
less communication between the two groups as there is within each group,
for linguistic and other reasons, so it makes sense for them to be separate.

As to St. Pierre and Miquelon, there are so few people living there it
probably doesn't matter. It is amazing that there is a French colony
embedded within the US and Canada. Very few people know about it.

It's off the coast of Newfoundland; that's not really "embedded" within
Canada, and is further from the US than many European colonies in the
Caribbean.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On 03/04/2012 03:12, wrote:
On Apr 2, 8:51 pm, wrote:

I recall a trip to Scotland in the 1950s where a payphone was wheeled
into the restaurant car whilst at Waverley, much as we used to drop
one into ships arriving at Boston Docks.

These were merely tied in by extension cords to a landline, right?

The US used to do that with premium trains when at major stations or
terminals.

Also, on premium trains there was a train secretary who would take
telegrams from passengers and send them off at the next station, and
also receive telegrams for passengers on the train.

I wonder if any trains were actually fitted with a telegraph operator
who knew how to use a key.

On 03-Apr-12 14:49, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Stephen Sprunk wrote:
PBX trunks aren't numbered.

If outbound trunks aren't numbered, how does ANI work?

For a trunk, both called and calling number are explicitly signaled at
the start of each call in either direction.

Inbound calls to a number (or set of numbers, eg. DID) are routed to any
available trunk in the trunk group.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:17:25 +0100, "
wrote:

On 02/04/2012 21:39, Owain wrote:
On Apr 2, 5:55 pm, wrote:
I've been told it's cheaper to arrange for a traditional pay phone at
a station as opposed to "help point speakerphone". The railway has to
pay for either one.

Yes, but the stations already get CCTV, long line PA, and information
screens, on the railway's internal IP network. The marginal cost of
the help points is quite small and they integrate into the other
systems in ways that a public payphone wouldn't (eg when the help
point is activated the CCTV camera automatically zooms to it and the
help operator can see the video). They are also less likely to be
targeted by vandals than payphones holding cash.

http://www.adt.co.uk/commercial-secu...ail-case-study

The cost of a local call in the US at a pay phone today is 50c. Long
distance rates vary greatly, and if a caller is not careful, can be
$25.00 for a quick call, which is ridiculous.

On a BT public payphone 60p minimum fee gets you 30 minutes, then 10p
for each subsequent 15 minutes or portion thereof, to a landline
anywhere in UK.

Owain


So, what is the cost on public payphones in the Channel Islands or the
Isle of Man?

Mann - 30p
as suggested by
http://www.manxtelecom.com/about/pay...l-charges.aspx

The lowest price mentioned by Jersey Telecom seems to be 40p.

On 01/04/2012 18:19, wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:53 am,
wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.
The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.
I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.
Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)-

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code. Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to
make it part of NANP.


Are any plans like that in the offing?

As to St. Pierre and Miquelon, there are so few people living there it
probably doesn't matter.

Yet it did matter that it had a separate country code of +508. But
that's the French, I suppose.


It is amazing that there is a French colony
embedded within the US and Canada. Very few people know about it.

The last French colony in that part of the world.

On 03/04/2012 00:27, Nobody wrote:
On Sun, 1 Apr 2012 14:06:14 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Apr 1, 2:41 pm, "Adam H. wrote:

AT&T created the numbering plan in 1947, and it took effect in 1951. It's
said that they intended to number all the world's countries within it, but
I don't see how there could have possibly been sufficient numbering space.

Given the many challenges in converting the US system to universal 10
digit addressing and converting the remaining manual exchanges to
dial, I don't think they were too concerned with direct dial
international calling at that time. They still had to lay cables to
many places to replace radio for overseas calls.

Some countries couldn't be reached, by any method, until the 1970s.

It intrigues me as to why North America cannot go to area code +
eight-digit addressing. Theoretically, you're increasing the number
availability by ten but don't have to create a new area code.

Aussie's done it, so have Brazil, Japan, France...

As they have here in London.

On Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:22:53 +0100, "
wrote:

On 01/04/2012 18:19, wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:53 am,
wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.
The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.
I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.
Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)-

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code. Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to
make it part of NANP.


Are any plans like that in the offing?

As to St. Pierre and Miquelon, there are so few people living there it
probably doesn't matter.

Yet it did matter that it had a separate country code of +508. But
that's the French, I suppose.


It is amazing that there is a French colony
embedded within the US and Canada. Very few people know about it.

The last French colony in that part of the world.

ITYF hasn't been a colony for many years but is now a partly
self-governing overseas territory of the Republic of France (having
chosen that option in 1958 according to Wonkypaedia), also making it
part of the European Union.