[VoIP] Questions about payphones (was Re: CAMA and UK billing)

[Mark Rudholm]

Jayson Smith wrote:
> Hi again,
> 
>      If I understand correctly, the last coin necessary to meet or exceed
> initial deposit is signaled via tones. So if it's set to 5c, and you drop in
> a nickel, that will be signaled. But if it's set to 20c, and you drop in
> four nickels, the first three aren't signaled, but the fourth one is. Is

No, that's not quite right.  The first three don't generate coin-tone,
but when you drop in the fourth, the totalizer then sends out the tones
for two dimes.  So it queues up the coin deposits until you satisfy the
Initial Rate deposit and then sends them all at once.

> that right? Have you monitored the electrical properties of the line when
> ACTS comes on the line to try to find out what ACTS is doing to signal the
> phone to start sending coin tones, even if initial deposit hasn't been made?

No, I have not done this extensively.  I was trying to get a hold of
a copy of the Coin Service Manual Volume I that describes all of this
but missed a couple of opportunities to buy one on ebay.  I now have
a scanned copy of this book, but it's a bit painful to read since the
pages are randomly inverted.

If anyone has a copy of this book they'd like to sell, it really
would be of much help to me for this project...