From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Call waiting
Call waiting
Call waiting (or catch phone in Japan), in telephony, is chines built by Western Electric,the number 1 ESS started
a feature on some telephone networks. If a calling party to replace older mechanical equipment in the old Bell
places a call to a called party which is otherwise engaged, System local telephone companies,. At first, some smaller
and the called party has the call waiting feature enabled, municipalities had it only on a specific phone exchange
the called party is able to suspend the current telephone (e.g., phone customers in Trenton, Michigan initially had
call and switch to the new incoming call (typically, this to have a phone number starting with 671 to have call
is done by pushing the flash button), and can then nego- waiting due fact 671 was at that time the only exchange
tiate with the new or the current caller an appropriate in that area served by one of the new ESS switches), but
time to ring back. as demand for it became more widespread, it eventual-
Call waiting, then, alleviates the need to have more ly became available on all phone exchanges as the older
than one line for voice communications. Note that since equipment was phased out.
the waiting call creates an audible (for example, a 440 Hz
beep every ten seconds in North America), call waiting
can cause dial-up Internet access connections to termi-
See also
nate, unless the modem supports the most recent V.92 • Busy line interrupt
modem standard. For this reason, call waiting is often • Internet Call Waiting
disabled on shared voice/data telephone lines. In North • Vertical service code
America, the NANP uses *70 before a call to suspend call
waiting for that call. A stuttered then regular dial tone
confirms the de-activation.
External links
Type II Caller ID also works with call waiting. • Call waiting user manual, and Call waiting product
specifications from Bell Canada
History
Call waiting was introduced to North America in the early
1970s when the first generation of electronic switch ma-
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_waiting&oldid=453091950"
Categories:
• Telephone service enhanced features
• Calling features
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