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-
- -=[ NorTel MilleniumZ - The Payphone for the next 1000 Years ]=-
-
- Those NorTel Milleniums that are being bought by the hoards by the RBOCs and
- put up everywhere are really a work of art. At first look, they might appear
- to be a bad idea in high vandalism areas, but they are actually very tough.
-
- The bodies are built with 1/4" reinforced steel, and they employ a 2-way dual
- locking system. First of all, the coin box and the logic box are locked
- seperately. Secondly, they use a 4-pin Medeco(tm) lock with a notched T-Bit
- bolt.
-
- The 4-Pin Medeco lock for the coin box is on the lower right side of the
- phone. This must be unlocked, before the T-Bit located on the front of
- the coin box can be turned to open the box.
-
- The 4-Pin Medeco lock for the logic box is on the upper left side of the
- phone. This must be unlocked, before the T-Bit that is also located on the
- upper left side of the phone can be turned. Once this is done, the logic
- box opens from top to bottom. That is, the part of the phone that includes
- the card reader, handset, keypad, display, and RBOC logo flip down. The
- hinge is located just under the card reader.
-
- Oh, a little note about the Medeco locks. Only 4 pins, you say?!? Well
- you can almost forget about trying to pick them. Medeco locks are special, in
- that not only must the pins be raised a certain amount, but they must also be
- rotated a certain amount. This rotation can be clockwise or anti-clockwise.
- And also, both Medeco locks are keyed differently for security purposes.
-
- How these phones operate is quite unusual. The days of ACTS and its variants
- are gone. These new breed of phones operate on the COCOT principal. I
- sometimes call them BOCOTs. The phone itself is responsible for billing. Not
- only for local calls, but for long distance and for overseas calling as well.
-
- When you pick up the handset on a Millenium and hear a "dial tone", it is not
- really a dial tone you are hearing. It is mearly a fake dial tone that the
- phone produces. After dialing your number, the phone then decides on what
- sort of call it is. Is it local, long distance, or overseas. If it is a
- local call, then a synthesized voice asks for the $0.25 and the display also
- prompts for the money. Once the money is in, the phone picks up the real line
- that it is connected to, and then re-dials the number that you entered into
- its memory. The call then goes on as normal.
-
- If it is a long distance call, the phone checks it's rate table for current
- rate based on time of day, day of week, and mileage to destination CO. It
- then asks for the appropriate amount of money and continues as with a local
- call. The same goes for an overseas call.
-
- Now, stuff gets a little trickier if you plan to use a card to bill the call.
- Milleniums are equipped with both a magnetic strip reader AND a smart card
- reader. However, not all RBOCs have issued smart cards. Bell Canada
- (Ontario/Quebec) has for sure, but as for the others, I don't know. I know
- that BC Tel doesn't have a smart card planned until mid '98 at the least.
- Anyways, after you dial your number, you are asked to put in your money or
- enter your card into the slot. If you opt to enter your card into the slot,
- then the phone reads in your card data. It then takes the real line that it
- is connected to off-hook and proceeds to call it's predetermined credit card
- authorization center. After authorizing your card, it hangs up, then
- re-seizes the line and proceeds to dial the number that you have entered into
- its memory.
-
- A word about authorization. In Canada, where Stentor owns DataPac AND the
- RBOCs, it is possible to use real-time credit card authorization even for a
- $0.25 call. That means that your card better be valid, or it will fail
- authorization. However, in the USA, where de-regulation has been widespread,
- an authorization costs about $0.50 for the use of a public switched network
- such as telenet. It doesn't make sense to spend this much money for an
- authorization on a call that is only going to cost the customer on an average
- of $2.30 for the first minute, and about $0.60 for each additional minute.
- Well, at least that is the way the RBOCs in the USA think. Because of this,
- credit card authorization is not in real time. Therefore, if you have a
- magnetic strip writer, you could write a valid Visa number to an old strip,
- and use it in a phone to call anywhere in the world for free, and without the
- annoying prompt for more money every minute. I have tried this in Seattle
- (USWest) on one of their Milleniums and it worked fine).
- However, in Canada, it won't work. The card number that you write to the card
- MUST be a REAL ISSUED number. Of course, these aren't TOO hard to come by,
- now are they?
-
- Well, there are LOTS more things to be learned about these new Milleniums for
- me and the rest of us, so get hacking! These are THE phones that will take us
- into the next millenium. There are things to be done with the keypad, but I
- don't know enuf to write about that at the present time. Codes that start with
- * and #.
-
- Anyways, my fingers hurt...
-
- =[mastermiind: agent 777]=
-
-
-