From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Fax Mail Service Offered by C&P Telephone
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:17:54 GMT
Reply-To: tdarcos@mcimail.com
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 784, Message 10 of 10

In an advertisement on page D13 of today's (10/15) {Washington Post},
C&P Telephone announced that it will offer Bell Atlantic Fax Mailbox
service for receiving faxes, in a manner similar to voice mail for
messages.

I called one of the sales people to get more information about this
service, and here are the details based on the questions I could think
to ask.  Also, their 800 number was answered at 7:55 at night, which
was a nice change.  The clerk will send me more information about it,
but here's what I got so far:

Pricing:

  -  No installation charge.  However (as noted in a separate paper
     that I received with my phone bill), the phone company is
     offering "amnesty" (even if they don't call it that) for
     service change charges during October whether this service
     has no installation charge next month is another thing.

  -  $19.95 a month.

  -  No charge to call in and retrieve messages.

  -  If used to send faxes, it's 40c per minute (about 2 pgs/minute)

  -  If a fax is transferred to another fax mailbox, it's 25c untimed
     (and the system will tell you if the destination is just a
     phone number or if it's a local fax mailbox)

  -  Will signal a pager or voice mailbox (if it's one of Bell
     Atlantic's or compatible with it, natch) when you get a fax.

Features:

   - User is assigned a separate telephone number for this service.

   - User can ask for a specific area code (in this area being
     202/301/703), 703 being easier.  Sales clerk said he also
     sold this service to someone in the Philadelphia area, so it
     might also be available there, too.

   - If the service is used to send or broadcast faxes, it will do
     automatic retries.

   - Incoming documents can be stored.

   - You can either call in and retrieve received messages from a fax
     machine, or transfer them someplace else.

Capabilities:

   - You can send a document to a maximum of 15 entries.

   - You can set up a list of people, and send to the list.

   - You can place up to 15 entries on a list.

   - You can set up up to ten lists. (Probably equivalent to the 0-9
     buttons on the Touch-Tone pad.)

   - In theory I suppose you could send a single fax to up to
     155 people at once, assuming you used all ten lists plus an
     additional five numbers.

   - 50 Page Capacity of "active" documents, (The sales clerk can't
     say what happens if a single received document is larger than
     50 pages.)
 
  - Can forward a received document to someplace else.
   - 25 page capacity of saved documents.

Unknown, but will be told to me:

   - What happens if a single incoming document is longer than
     50 pages.

   - If the answerback given out by the called number can be
     programmed.


Paul Robinson, TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
These (uninformed) opinions are exclusively my own, and no one else
is (stupid enough to be) responsible for them.