How to use the Cancel Call-Waiting Feature ------------------------------------------ John Desmond K0TG Northwestern Bell VIA The Digital Newsletter ***612/291-0567*** Tired of your computer calls being interupted by the call waiting feature on your home phone? If so read on. In July of this year, Northwestern Bell instaled a feature called "Cancel Call Waiting" in many of it's 1A Electronic Switching Systems (ESS) in the Metro area. If you have call waiting you can defeat the feature two different ways. First, when originating a call dial *70 first, then you will hear 2 quick bursts of dial tone then a steady dial tone then you can make your call and the call waiting feature will be defeated for the duration of your call. When you hang up it will automatically restore call waiting for the next call. The second way is that if you have conference calling you can shut off call waiting while you are on the phone during a conversation by flashing the switch-hook to get the second dial tone and then dial the *70 code. You will hear the two beeps of dial tone and then be dropped back to the party you were talking to. For those of you that do not have touch-tone service you can dial 1170 in place of the *70 code. It operates the same as the *70 code. Set-up your auto-dial modems to dial the *70 code before you call any computer system. Even though you need to be served by an ESS office to get these features, this feature is not available in all ESS offices. This is determined by the type of processor your particular exchange has. At this writing the feature only works in a #1A type ESS office. The other ESS offices are mostly known as #1 ESS's. Just for a little background information, the 1A type exchanges can be found in the larger (busier) exchanges. The 1A has more capacity and more other features than the #1 ESS. But don't lose all hope, some #1 ESS offices can be and will be converted to 1A's in the future as more capacity is needed in that area. It may be possible to incorporate this feature in the #1's in the future also. I have seen some lists of exchanges on different computer bulletin boards that had exchanges that did not exist or cannot even offer the call waiting feature. Hopefully this list will set the record straight. Another way to defeat call waiting is to use the call forwarding feature if you have it on your line. When your calls are forwarded the phone will not "BEEP" when a call comes in. With the call forwarding feature activated your phone will still work on outgoing calls, all the incomming calls will go to the forwarded number.