Abstract: An additional concentrator is provided in a Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) similar to that disclosed in A. E. Joel, Jr. Pat. No. 3,731,000, issued May 1, 1973, to facilitate the handling of operator assistance telephone calls requiring routing back to originating offices. More specifically, on the toll office side of this additional concentrator in addition to the normal TSPS remote toll trunks, "loopback" trunks are provided for establishing connections through this concentrator directly back to a plurality of "local" offices served by the concentrator. Operator assistance calls in which only a single digit (normally 0) is dialed are connected to these loopback trunks with the expectation that the call will be completed back to the originating or associated office.

Abstract: A call answering arrangement for enabling a calling subscriber to control the charging of a telephone call directed to a called telephone line equipped with an automatic telephone answering device. Incoming call signals appearing on the telephone line enable the call answering arrangement to direct the telephone answering device to transmit a prerecorded message to the calling subscriber and to record a message received from the calling subscriber. An incoming call is answered by momentarily applying answer supervision to the telephone line in response to the incoming call signals. The calling subscriber subsequently controls the interval of the answered telephone call during which the answering arrangement reapplies answer supervision to the telephone line for the purpose of charging the calling subscriber only for the calling subscriber use of the telephone service.