On Wed, 4 Nov 1998 22:20:55 -0500 John Hansen writes: >I've been looking into this as well. My theory is that most of the= > automated calling services these days have about one second of silence after you >pick up the phone, but before you are connected to the salesperson. I don't think the delay is intentional or reliable. I believe it's the call distributing system detecting an answer (possibly using a signal from the central office?), then passing the call to the next available telemarketer. I believe the call distributing system anticipates call durations and dials out based on that anticipated duration. If it works out just right, a telemarketer is handed the call just as he/she finishes a previous call and as the person receiving the call gets the receiver to his/her ear. If the person receiving the call answers a little earlier than expected, or the telemarketers take a little longer than expected to complete the call, there is a short delay before a telemarketer is available to have the call handed to. So, there is generally a delay from zero to several seconds. I use the detected silence to quickly hang up when answering calls. The other great device to deter telemarketing calls is to just turn off all the ringers and let an answering machine handle the call. If you hear someone leaving a message that you'd like to talk with, pick up the phone! Harold Harold Hallikainen harold@hallikainen.com Hallikainen & Friends, Inc. See the FCC Rules at http://hallikainen.com/FccRules and comments filed in LPFM proceeding at http://hallikainen.com/lpfm ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]