Methods are disclosed for provisioning a private party telephony device for public call treatment on a temporary basis (for example, before allowing third party use of the device) and applying such public call treatment for call originations or terminations. Billing in public call treatment is arranged with assistance of an operator services platform with the user (for example, the third party user) of the private party telephony device. Advantageously, therefore, in public call treatment mode, the owner of the private party phone need not police third party use of the phone and will not be billed for such third party use. The owner may resume private call treatment when desired by converting the device from public mode to private mode.