Computer problems? Phone AOL, for free

From What The Wiki?!

EventPhone from Germany arrived at WhatTheHack already more then a week ago. Their early arrival was partly motivated by the fact that rigging up their system is an elaborate task, partly because the organization badly needed a good communication system: all these people digging, carrying, connecting, building, and generally creating a high-tech infrastructure needed to be able to talk at any time at no cost whatsoever.

Enter EventPhone, committed to creating a free-of-charge telephone infrastructure, using DECT phones. After registering your DECT, picking a user name and a four digit number, you can phone other DECT users at no charge at all. The phones are a bit blunt and heavy, but especially foreign visitors of WTH appreciate not having to pay roaming costs when phoning friends at the festival. By Friday afternoon, about a thousand DECTs were registered, that is: half the WTH population had a working DECT.

The system allows for making foreign free phone-calls, too, by prefixing '77' to an international number. The system doesn't always work, since it depends on whether there is an internet gateway at the receiver's end.

There are fun numbers to try. Ben of EventPhone gave a brief list:

TIME	will connect you to a time announcement system.
8666	a German adult phone, which tells you in six or seven different languages that they are currently not available.
8888	a German confession line where you can owe up to all your sins; afterwards, you get the message that if you send them a certain amount of money, your sins will be washed away and you're literally off the hook.
8124	a personalized tune will be triggered.

The funniest free number to dial is an international one: 77 44 800 376 5432 will connect you to AOL which will then deal with all your computer problems. That should come in handy for WTH visitors! Conveniently, when you use this number AOL cannot trace the origin of the call. But please be polite.

[story submitted by Karin Spaink]