I remember simpler times, in which there were no mobile phones, if you needed to talk with someone you had to use a land line at home. If you were out, you hoped you had enough change to call from a payphone. If you really needed to call home, only in those real important situations, you could call collect. When you dialed the prefix number, followed by the number that you were trying to call, it would ring until answered. The prerecorded message would ask the reciever, "will you accept a collect call from," then you would say your name for them to hear and decide. Placing a collect call would charge the account on the recieving end and was usually super expensive, over a DOLLAR per minute, not something that you would often do; unless you were creative. I knew people that never carried around pocket change, but always needed to use the phone to call and check in or say they would be late getting home. Their solution would be to blurt out the entirety of intended message, as fast as possible, so that mom would know they would be late. Of course, the reciever would not accept the call; the message still got through though! Every once in a while I still see one or two that work, GENERALly they don't.