In a message dated 11/8/99, Gaston Cloutier writes:

>  In North America, to charge for a conversation (public payphone), the
>  beginning of the conversation is indicated by battery reversal (RBA).
>  I heard that in Europe to meter a conversation, there is billing tones (12 
&
>  16 KHz) .


Gaston:

I believe that Dick Shultz' response pretty much covers what I could tell you 
about finding specifications for billing tones.  The ETS 300 001 document has 
a good summary in Chapter 9, clause 9.2.

While I am familiar with the application of billing tones on residential 
lines in Europe, I am less familiar with the possible use of billing tones 
for public pay phones.  In the past I have heard occasional references to 
this possibility, but I have never been able to confirm that 12 KHZ and/or 16 
KHz billing tones are used for public pay phones.  

If you or anyone else on treg have information on how public pay phone 
billing is handled in Europe (whether with billing tones or otherwise), I 
would be interested to hear about it.  I have had a couple of clients ask me 
to include billing tone capability in SLIC circuits that I designed, because 
the client believed that billing tones are used to interoperate with public 
payphones.  I would like to know more about how public pay phones operate in 
Europe, but I have not been able to locate suitable documentation.


Joe Randolph
Telecom Design Consultant
Randolph Telecom, Inc.

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