On 27/04/16 09:16, Owen DeLong wrote: > One thing I always found particularly amusing was that it used to be a toll > call to call from San Jose East (408238) to Sunnyvale (I forget the NPA/NXX), > but that there were several prefixes in San Jose West (e.g. 408360 IIRC) > where it was free to call from San Jose East and could place a free call to > Sunnyvale. > > I also discovered that a single line with call forwarding was relatively > cheap per month and could forward many calls into a hunt group. > > So, we used to extend the toll-free reach of BBS systems by finding “friends” > with houses in strategic prefixes and having them install a single telephone > line with call forwarding. Then, once the line was installed, we’d run over > to the location, program the forwarder to go to the BBS hunt lead number and > voila… Instant toll free unlimited BBS calling for another 20-30 prefixes for > less than $15/month and completely legal. > > At first, we thought we had to hide what we were doing as we were sure that > the phone company would object, but we later discovered that absent a PUC > proceeding to change the tariff they really didn’t have anything they could > say about it. We started showing up on the day of install to dial in the > forwarding and confirm functionality while the tech was still on site. You > should have seen some of the reactions when we showed up with a butt set, set > up call forwarding, told someone to make a test call and waited for positive > confirmation. Priceless.
Similar things happened in Australia, with more than one ISP using this to offer lower-toll dial-in numbers to their customers back in the day.
