Calling card
Calling cards are credit cards for a contingent of telephone calls. The card is used to purchase prepaid calling credit that is used until the credit is used up. In contrast to telephone cards , the credit is not stored on the card, but centrally with the telecommunications service provider . There are also no technical devices necessary for the telephone, which allows the use of any telephone. The telephone must enable tone dialing.
On a calling card you will find a secret number (so-called PIN ) next to the value of the card . You can use this number to make calls by calling the calling card's often free dial-in number ( 0800 ) and entering the card's PIN. The card number and codes are transmitted by tone dialing . The voting process is called " Call through ".
After dialing in, you usually hear an announcement about how much credit you have left on the calling card. Then you can dial the desired number, including the area code, and make calls at the terms of the calling card company. In other countries, such as the USA and Great Britain , calling cards are already widely used today.
Telephone calls abroad
For calls to many countries, calling cards are sometimes cheaper than dumping providers on the call-by-call market. In the tariff information, however, the dial-in fees that are often present in the small print, billing every two or even three minutes, and weekly fees must be observed.
On vacation and during stays abroad
Calling cards make it possible to make calls to your home country from abroad, often much cheaper. This has two advantages: on the one hand, you can make calls at lower rates, and on the other hand, you have full cost control at all times. You can use your usual cell phone, but also phone booths or hotel phones.
Via external connections
Calling cards are mainly used in Germany to make calls from external telephone connections that should not be billed via the telephone connection (e.g. in the office). This is ensured through the use of toll-free 0800 dial-in numbers. The calls are billed to the calling card account authenticated by a PIN .
Calling cards are also an alternative to Call-by-call function that only telephone connections of Deutsche Telekom is available. For example, with providers who offer DSL and telephony at a fixed price, calls abroad or in cellular networks are sometimes more expensive than those made with the unusable call-by-call providers. 0800 numbers can also be reached via telephone connections from alternative providers .
literature
- Yue Hao, Jiming Liu, Yuping Wang, Yiu-ming Cheung, Hujun Yin, Licheng Jiao, Jianfeng Ma, Yong-Chang Jiao (Eds.): Computational Intelligence and Security . Springer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-540-30818-0 .
- Johannes Lenz-Hawliczek, Georg Stanossek: Dschungelführer 2008. The guide through the German telecommunications market. Portel.de, 2008, ISBN 978-3-9806891-8-2 .