Well, wiki does of course, but I had forgotten about those once heavily advertised services until recently when I was going thru some of my parents old papers and came across what at first looked like a Christmas card (nice envelope and everything - I think they even used stamps for that personal look), but turned out to be a glossy “Don’t Forget” ad for VarTec 10-10 long distance service (I guess my parents used it a few times around the turn of the century to call some of our relatives scattered across the US) - they even included 10-10 stickers to put on your phone too, of course.
Due to changes in phone service such as unlimited calling plans and so on, I figured these 10-10 services were gone (wiki indicates they were interexchange services), but there are apparently some still around, and on-line reviews seem to indicate that the services became expensive, started charged monthly fees, and so on (in other words, they were no longer bargains).
Anyone else remember using such services? Not sure if I ever did, but clearly my parents once did.
They were huge and competitive at one time, but they were also a niche that was eclipsed by the elimination of long-distance charges for most phone owners, wired and wireless.
The 10-10 services were resellers of leased trunk capacity, of which most providers had a surplus and still do. (As industry guru Harry Newton put it, “A long distance call is an essentially costless byproduct of the phone system.”)
I worked in an industry that provided the back-end equipment for such pay-call systems and saw a lot of weird little startups, like callback phone systems for South America. Instead of paying $3-4 a minute for calls to the US, subscribers would call a US number and let it ring several times. The system would use ANI call identification (and subscriber database info) to call them back at US rates of a few cents a minute, and allow them to connect from that system to a US number, all for about 30-50 cents a minute. Nearly all of these workarounds and gimmicks have disappeared as (as Arthur C. Clarke predicted) long-distance charges become a thing of the past.
resellers available to residential customers became popular when computer forums, beyond a local BBS, started. the closest modem for that forum might be many hundreds of miles away.
Up to a year or two ago, I would use 10-10-YAK from time to time. But then Google pushed out free North American calling for Canadians and that was the end of that.
The other thing I remember using are prepaid calling cards. We would buy cards from Costco or other places that would be loaded with, say, 1000 minutes of calling time, at a cost of about two cents per minute. You calll the toll-free number on the back of the card, enter the number for the calling card, and then the number you wish to reach. (I suppose those cards might still be useful if you didn’t want your calls traced.)
Yeah, I used to use those services. I saved money by “no-PICing” my landline (that is, selecting NO default long distance carrier, which allowed one to avoid various taxes and fees) and using 10-10 services for the very few LD calls I made.
This was all before cell phones. I use to have a Casio watch that could store phone numbers so I stored my long distance card number along with my address book.
I remember back in 2004 I went on a trip. I bought one of those pre-paid calling cards with a few hundred minutes. I didn’t have a cell phone back then, you see.
Guess what I ended up using that calling card for the most? Dial-up internet!!! As recalled correctly, you had to dial a number, dial in the calling card ID number, then dial the number you wanted to call. It was fun figuring out how many commas or whatever it was you put in the dialer to take up some “time” while the calling card system answered the call, then prompted for the calling card ID, then prompted for the number you wanted to dial. It was kind of like a code I had to crack.
So I was connecting to my dial-up internet provider in Southern Oregon from various points in the country. This was before hotels had free internet. (I think hotels had it but you had to pay for it, if they did have it at all)
I used one a few years ago when my daughter was in Namibia. It was the cheapest way to call her. We were spending about $100 for about four hours of talk; using my landline was $5 a minute.
Good heavens. When I read the OP I thought, “what, the 10 10 things aren’t new anymore?” And then wondered “the turn of WHICH century?”
And now we are remembering back in 2004?
OK, look, if we want to reminisce, when I started working for my current employer the hardware store we used did not have a direct dial number. You still had to call the operator and ask to be connected. Now THAT’S antiquated.
I remember them, but phone cards were cheaper and thus were what I used in college, where we didn’t have a long distance service otherwise. Eventually the collect calling services were even cheaper, so I started using those. Plus they worked at payphones, without me having to have exact change to make the call. (I even used them for local calls on payphones.)
I remember them, my roomie of the time Pam used one of them all the time. We had not picked a long distance carrier at the time. I had a work issued calling card that I used and anything not work related I had deducted from my paycheck [and a work issued credit card, and anything not work related also was deducted from my paycheck. I was probably the only 18 year old that was not a trustafarian who had an American Airline frequent flier card]