[log in to unmask],Net writes:
>Except that all the patients would be trying to get through on one
>telephone
>line. The answering machine can only "speak" to one person at a time.
>An
>even greater log-jam would result as the machine was constantly
>engaged/rewinding/giving out smoke.
I think we would probably hire somebody with enough sense to use an
answering system with enough lines to cope with the demand, and my
preference would be for one which did not have a tape in it - this
being the least reliable part.
The rate at which calls arrive at an exchange is described by a Poisson
distribution, and the statistical calculations of how many lines per
1000 potential callers have been done by among others telephone
companies - the numbers they arrive at are probably more than most
general practices have for incoming calls in daytime.
I see a market in fact for an answering device with sufficient chip
memory to have more than the single outgoing message mine records, so
one could define say 8 messages, one for each night and one for lunch,
controlled by a simple selector on the machine.
My solid state answerphone at home has proved very reliable.
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