"Toll ticketing or providing a hard copy record of the rate and time a subscriber uses telephone system equipment has been a feature in telephone systems almost since their conception."

"In older systems, an operator was required to handwrite toll tickets for the subscribers making toll calls. In more recent systems with the advent of direct distance dialing (DDD), the concept of automatic message accounting or ticketing without operator assistance has been developed." [From a toll ticket patent continued below . . .]

CAMA-ONI was an operator located at a position that was connected temporarily on a customer dialed 1+ station-to-station call. This was done in switches that couldn't automatically identify the number of the dialing party for billing purposes. The calling party could only give the operator a number in the originating central office.

The operator got the calling number from the customer and keyed the number into the CAMA equipment before the called number rang. As soon as the calling number was keyed in the call was disconnected from the operator and sent to its destination.

A customer would sometimes give you a number from another central office, attempting to make a 'third number billing' which was technically only to be handled by a Toll and Assistance operator and ticket and timed at operator assisted rates. There was a trick many customers knew: if they were calling from another number in the same central office, even if the prefix was different, the CAMA-ONI board would still accept the number. That meant the customer did get a third party billing call at the cheaper DDD, or direct dial rates.

The operator sat at a simple sloped position, much like the directory assistance positions without the books and only a key pulse keypad on them. Note the tiny keypads in the above photograph. To me it was the most boring, mindless job in any operator center but some operators spent all of their time on them. Basically a call dropped in with a "zip tone" and you said "your number please?" and the party 1+ dialing gave you their number and you keyed it in and another dropped in and you endlessly keyed numbers in. I dreaded being sent to CAMA because I would sit there for two hours and look at the clock and actually I'd only been there 10 minutes.

Another method for answering CAMA was the original one and that was on the cordboard. At the top of the board there was a switch and if CAMA got overloaded or broke down a lamp lit up, the switch was thrown, you threw all of your "forward and back" keys (keys that opened and closed the cord call connections) directly up and CAMA calls dropped in.

In Phoenix the Directory Assistance operators answered Directory, Intercept and CAMA calls, taking whichever one dropped into their position. That was a lot less boring than pure CAMA, DA or Intercept. Unfortunately in the Tempe office, a satellite office just outside of Phoenix, we did Directory Assistance only. We did, however, get the calls from out of state operators and customers who had dialed 1+602+555-1212.

One amusing call we would get regularly was when we answered "Arizona, for what city please?" the calling party would say "Little Rock." After a pause we would inform the party that Little Rock was in Arkansas and the abbreviation for Arizona was "AZ" and for Arkansas was "AR." We would then politely advice them the area code for Arkansas was 501 and to please hang up and redial 1+501+555-1212. Amazingly some customers would argue with you that Arizona's abbreviation was AR and they wanted Little Rock, Arizona. Now, Arizona has many unique town names but Little Rock isn't one of them.

J.R. Snyder Jr.

Resources

United States Patent 3,956,592
Altenburger , et al. May 11, 1976
Automatic toll ticketing

Automatic message accounting systems are a necessity for the common control telephone systems of today. The speed at which such telephone systems operate and the number of subscribers they may handle simultaneously must be matched by an accounting system of similar speed and capability. Also, modern automatic message accounting systems should have the capability of toll charging all unassisted dialed calls from a subscriber. These calls generally have the designation of sent paid, station-to-station (SPSS) terminations and are usually accessed by the use of a 1+ called number code. The SPSS or 1+ call may be one of two types, a local or a tributary connection.

The local call requiring local automatic message accounting (LAMA) is made by a subscriber, serviced by the exchange with the ticketing equipment, to another subscriber at an external exchange. However, it is generally inefficient to equip every exchange with ticketing equipment and a central exchange, usually a larger class office, is selected to perform centralized automatic message accounting (CAMA) for a plurality of tributary office exchanges. Therefore, it is a general requirement that such CAMA ticketing equipment provide a large traffic handling capability with respect to both speed and size. The tributary connection through the ticketing exchange may be made either to a local subscriber at the ticketing exchange or to another tributary office. It would also be advantageous to ticket both LAMA and CAMA calls with common ticketing equipment.

Many CAMA and LAMA systems have automatic number identification (ANI) for directing the calling number into the accounting system. There are instances, however, where SPSS calls are made from multiparty lines or exchanges without ANI or instances where a request for the ANI results in an equipment failure. Provision should be made in modern AMA systems for handling toll ticketing of these calls with the same facility as the ANI terminations.

[Editor's Note: Always more good information at the United States Patent Office (external link)]

Many, many more related pages! Click for a list. Information on J.R. Snyder Jr., operators, directory assistance working and history, placing toll calls and so on. Great reading.

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