Mr. Crawford is a counselor for a Seattle firm, Free and Clear, whose services include operating phone lines 18 hours a day to help workers stop smoking.
Mr. Lhota responded by calling the borough president's special phone line a "duplicative bureaucratic mistake," since the Health Department has operated its own pest control phone line for years.
They can operate over phone lines and broadband cable or by satellite.
The Bereaved Families Forum, whose members have all lost relatives to Palestinian suicide bombings or Israeli army incursions, holds school talks and runs art projects, and operates a phone line that people can call to make contact with someone from the other side.
Mr. Cohen knows what to blame for the unusual weather: El Nino, the warm body of water in the Pacific Ocean that causes global "weather events". And he uses the Web to gain access to the latest data and articles while he operates a phone line.
In addition, Federal Express will market two new machines - Federal Express Faxsystem 10 and Faxsystem 30 - that operate over the phone lines.
In the late 1990s, for example, many nonintegrated companies attempted to offer high-speed DSL access to the Internet over phone lines operated by telephone companies.
But he added, "It comes as no surprise that their kind of solution is that if you want to take care of the problems of Sept. 11 and wipe out the threat of terrorism, 'wipe out my competitors.' " Verizon, an offspring of the old Bell network formed when Bell Atlantic and GTE merged last year, operates more than 128.5 million phone lines in 31 states and the District of Columbia.
Most of the phone lines are operated by Beltelecom, a state-owned company.
A Verizon Wireless spokeswoman tells me this is standard operating procedure across its camera phone lines.
In addition to respite care, Sunshine House would operate a 24-hour phone line for parents who need support.
