[net.consumers] Alternate phone carrier query

hlee@hplabsb.UUCP (Ho John Lee) (10/12/84)

Does anyone have any recommendations for alternate long distance
phone carriers? My roommate wants to get a subscription
to SBS, which supposedly has reasonable coverage and channel
quality. My only experience so far has been with MCI, which
seemed to have a lot of hiss and fading.


-- 
Ho John Lee, HP Labs
UUCP:	...!hplabs!hlee
ARPA:	hlee.hplabs@csnet-relay

bazelman@wivax.UUCP (Rudy Bazelmans) (10/16/84)

> 
> Does anyone have any recommendations for alternate long distance
> phone carriers? My roommate wants to get a subscription
> to SBS, which supposedly has reasonable coverage and channel
> quality. My only experience so far has been with MCI, which
> seemed to have a lot of hiss and fading.
> -- 
> Ho John Lee, HP Labs

I have been using SPRINT for about a year now.  I use SPINT rather than
MCI because the ability to make calls from outside your local calling
area is free whereas MCI charges $5/mo.  I am often in NH, MA and NY and
it is nice to use the service anywhere.  It is also about 10-20% cheaper
than AT&T.

On the down side: The phone quality is all right, not great. I get billed
for one minute calls that I never made. Apparently they (and several others
including MCI) can't detect when the phone was actually answered and if
you let it ring too long (>5?) they assume that it was answered.  It is also
a real pain to get credit for phone calls never made.  I have also had numerous
occasions where the local access number was either busy or it didn't answer.
I have also gotten busy signals from the SPRINT trunks on the destination
side.  When I call customer service, they tell me to try again later.  If
I decide to use AT&T, they won't pay the difference.

I recently heard from a reliable source at from AT&T that the reason that
AT&T is so much higher in cost compared to the other long-distance carriers is 
because they are required to pay twice the access charges until equal
access is in effect in the area.  When equal access is in effect, I plan
to return to good old AT&T; maybe sooner.



-- 

Rudy Bazelmans - Wang Institute, (617) 967-2609
[apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wivax!bazelmans