ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Another old telephone

It's almost always the "hash key" here in Ireland.

One of the phone companies here will go as far as saying "... and press the hash key, located under the number 9 on your telephone keypad"

Some US systems also call it "number sign"... and I remember a Sony answering machine that insisted on calling it "gate" in voice prompts.

I remember using some very old telecom service that asked you to "key your ID number and terminate with a hash!" How customer friendliness has improved!


The same system liked to tell you "your call will now be terminated"

....

There's now the much more patronising:

"Are you still there?"
"you appear to be having difficulty...please try again later or call our helpdesk on ..."

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 04-22-2005).]

For a sample from Ireland, call:

From the U.K.: 0800 890353
From the U.S.: 1-800-562-6262

(Sorry, I don't have the numbers for other countries to hand.)

Ah, but they will still tell you your call will be terminated. Just hit 0# each time at the prompts on the above number!

I just checked the BT Direct service, and curiously enough that uses the term hash, even though all the local voice prompts (*55* for reminder call for example) all say to use "square."

BT Direct-
From Ireland: 1800 550144
From U.S.: 1-800-445-5688 (via AT&T)

By the way, you wouldn't want to use BT's chargecard service except in a real emergency. Rates back to Britain are 78 pence per minute from the U.S. and 90 pence per minute from Ireland!

From Gideon:






[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 04-24-2005).]