125 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
125 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
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< The United Phreaker's Incorporated Proudly Presents >
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< >
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< Phone Calling To The Future >
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< By: The Lost Avenger >
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< >
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< An Upi Production 1990 >
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< >
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Reprinted In File Form On February 13, 1990
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Orignally Publised In Toronto Star Monday February 12, 1990
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===============================================================================
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PHONE CALLING TO THE FUTURE
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By Bill Reno
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SPECIAL TO THE STAR
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LAS VEGAS - There is no limit to what the telephone can do for a
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business of any size. Those who do not learn to use the power of voice
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processing will not survive in tomorrow's marketplace.
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That was the message that emerged here last month from Infotext 90, a
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convention for the voice processing industry.
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Voice processing has grown from a start in 1983 to a billion dollar a
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year business involving thousands of enterprises.
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The industry produces computerized information, entertainment and
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customer services delivered over the world's most pervasive medium: The
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ordinary telephone.
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Callers in the U.S. can access a seemingly endless array of services,
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such as used car prices, legal advice, dating tips, sports scores, job openings
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and cat lore. Trivia games with cash prizes, fantasy baseball leagues and
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cross continent personals are some of the more popular phone entertainment
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offerings.
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Phone Lines
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Most of these services were developed by individual suppliers who have
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knowledge and entertainment concepts to sell and can be reached on pay per call
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phone lines.
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Callers are billed the cost of the services by the phone companies,
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which keep part of the revenue for use of the line and pay the rest to the
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information provider.
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Caller pay lines have special number prefixes, the most common being
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976, which cover a single area code, and 900, which can be accessed by callers
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from anywhere in the U.S., except Alaska and Hawaii.
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Callers to these numbers are all billed the same rate, regardless of
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the distance of the transmission. A New York based 900 service giving up to
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the second commodity prices, for example, will cost callers from Manhattan to
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Seattle precisely the same amount per minute.
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About 100 services are available on 976 phone lines from Bell Canada in
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Ontario and Quebec. The majority of the lines are the often controversal adult
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fantasy lines, which are on the wane in the U.S. because of market saturation.
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The 900 service is not yet available in Canada, except for automated
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polling or call count lines, which are actually routed into the U.S. over the
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AT&T network.
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Bell plans the introduction of full 900 service in Ontario some time in
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1991.
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Essential links in the delivery system are the telephone service
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bureaus - agencies which thousands of phone lines from the carriers.
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The lines are then connected to specialized voice processing computers
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and re-rented to the information providers, who promote their services to their
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target audiences, typically through radio and television advertising.
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Fortunes have been made almost overnight by information providers know
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in the industry as infopreneurs, who understand what information or
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entertainment callers will pay for and how best to package and promote it.
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One dramatic example of sucess in this new industry is Arthur Toll, a
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former airline executive who founder Gateway Telecommunications in 1987 with
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two answering machines costing $70 each. Last year his company, which now
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includes a service bureau, advertising agency, equipment manufactor and media
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production house, had gross billings of $39 million (U.S.) and is currently the
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largest provider of 900 services in the U.S.
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Voice Processing
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While the voice information industry was launched by individual
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infopreneurs like Toll, established businesses sre rapidly, and profitably,
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incorporating voice processing into marketing and customer service programs.
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Already in wide use is the dealer location service, where callers enter
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their postal code into their touchtone phone to hear a short advertisment along
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with the address and phone number of the nearest dealer.
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Also becoming popular are phone entry contests and product sample
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request lines. The caller is normally asked to answer a few basic market
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research questions, which the business uses to build present and potential
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customer databases.
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A case study presented at the convention demonstrated how Revlon used a
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$100,000 (U.S.) phone sweepstakes to stimulate calls to an automated
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advertising and market research 900 number.
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Phone Bills
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Since the callers paid $2 on their phone bills to enter the contest,
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most of the costs of the program were covered by the entrants themselves.
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Among the several Canadians attending the convention was Mandle Cheung,
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president of Computer Talk Technology in Richmond Hill, a major designer and
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manufacturer of voice processing systems in this country.
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Cheung was impressed by the inventiveness of Americans in creating new
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applications, but felt there was nothing to learn from then on the technology
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side.
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"Everything the Americans are doing with developing the hardware and
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software itself, we do as well, in some cases better," Cheung said. "We feel
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we have more appreciation for how small and medium sized businesses can exploit
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this exciting new technology."
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You may distrubute this file freely but may not change any part of this file in
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whole or part without the written or verbal concent of the author.
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===============================================================================
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Call These Great Upi Boards!
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===============================================================================
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Node Number Board Name Sysop Baud
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===============================================================================
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Hq 416-Upi-Home The Northern Phreaker's Alliance The Lost Avenger 12/24
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1 416-Upi-Nde1 The Shining Realm FrosT BitE 12/24
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2 514-Upi-Nde2 The Order Of Kamikaze Tomcat 12/24
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===============================================================================
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02-13-90/003 Copywrite 1990 By The Lost Avenger-All Rights Reserved
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Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253 12yrs+
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