Editing Answering machine (section)

== Answering and ending calls ==
There are two possibilities for answering an incoming call: (1) waiting arbitrarily long for operator intervention, or (2) automatically answering after a specified number of rings in a certain state of the TAD (e.g. "toll saving" below). This is useful if the owner is [[call screening|screening calls]] and does not wish to speak with all callers.

In any case after going ''[[off-hook]]'', the calling party should be informed about the call having been answered (in most cases this starts the charging), either by some remark of the operator, or by some greeting message of the TAD, or addressed to non-human callers (e.g. fax machines) by implementing an appropriate protocol over the landline. In some cases the [[terminal equipment]] answering a call just sends a slightly modified [[ringback tone]] to the caller, while processing the protocol.

Similarly, the called equipment can end a call by going ''[[on-hook]]'' deliberately, because of some specific signalling, or because of some time out.