From: ahk@chinet.com   
      
   Stephen Sprunk  wrote:   
      
   >It's a lot easier to teach them "press the Transfer key, dial the   
   >number, and hang up" than to teach them the hookflash method (where   
   >available) on analog phones, which is easily confused with the hookflash   
   >sequence for 3-way calling (where available).   
      
   Oy vey. Cook County government spent a fortune on local telephone service.   
   They carefully planned their telephone numbers so that they wouldn't have   
   conflicts in the prefixes that were used, despite the number of area codes   
   the Chicago metropolitan area had. I'd call one office, and would be told   
   that I had to speak to a different office.   
      
   "Can you please transfer my call?"   
      
   "No. I can't transfer a call to another building."   
      
   I had to explain how to transfer the call, and that calling inside the   
   network meant calling only the extension if the prefix was shared, or   
   calling the seven-digit number if the prefix wasn't shared. They never   
   had to dial 10 digits within the network.   
      
   And they were clueless about hook-flash to transfer. All that money   
   spent on phones and they had never been taught to use them.   
      
   But pressing a separate button on a telephone set? There's no shortage of   
   office workers who don't know how to do that either. I don't think one   
   method is truly easier than the other method. There's a learning curve   
   either way.   
      
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