🚀 go-pugleaf

	This is not my area of expertise, but I think this is the way
	it works. When the called party answers, a tip and ring reversal
	is sent back to the calling end to indicate the party has answered.

	In the beginning of alternate carrier usage, the customer
	got dial tone out of his central office, and dialed a number
	to reach the LD carriers circuits. Then he was given a
	2nd dial tone from the LD company. At this point in time,
	it appeared to the calling equipment to be an answer.

	With the addition of "equal access" features to the calling
	end, the 2nd dial tone isn't used. The calling end pulses
	the numbers into the LD equipment, and when the called party
	answers, the reversal is sent back to allow correct billing.
	The equal access feature is not available in most
	electromechanical offices, and I think that nation wide
	about 80 some odd percent of the offices are supposed to
	be equal access in 1986.

	I cannot say how the LD carrier's equipment works or what
	"sophisticated equipment" they have.

	By the way, in offices with equal access, billing records
	are recorded at the calling end regardless of whether or not
	the LD carrier records it. Then for a fee, the local operating
	company can handle the billing.
	


Greg Hackney
Southwestern Bell
Texas Network Engineering Support Systems
Houston, Texas

---- The preceeding was my own opinion and not those of A.G. Bell,
     S.W. Bell, Judge Green, my mother, or my wife ----