[comp.dcom.modems] Dialing 617-437-XXX from 617-439-XXX. Free local call?

lee@gdc.portal.com (Seng-Poh Lee, Gen DataComm, +1 203 758-1811) (03/18/91)

Can anyone in Boston tell me if there are any charges for dialing from
617-439-XXX to 617-437-XXX? I subscribe to this outdial service, and in my
last bill, I incured local telco charges for calls between these two prefixes.
A call to my local operator proved useless as she really didn't understand why
someone from CT would be concerned with local charges in MA. I didn't have to
dial 1 for those calls, but apparently they still incur local charges. They
amounted to about $2 for a hour, but I want to make sure that is correct.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

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bruce@camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (03/18/91)

In article <7775@gdc.portal.com>, lee@gdc.portal.com (Seng-Poh Lee, Gen DataComm, +1 203 758-1811) writes:
> Can anyone in Boston tell me if there are any charges for dialing from
> 617-439-XXX to 617-437-XXX? I subscribe to this outdial service, and in my

Those are both in Boston, so they are a 1 message unit class call. That means
that for each 5 minutes or fraction thereof a business line pays just over 10 
cents. There are NO unlimited business lines in Boston. Out a way there are 
some, but only those companies that kept them can get more. As of last Oct 
no more subscribers to get unlimited business lines! NYNEX spent a lot of time
getting business to try the 'cheaper per month' measured service before the
deadline. Those that didn't switch back in time got telco-screwed.

Without dialing 1, you also can have 2 MU calls where you pay 2 MUs for the 
first 5 min and 1 mu for each 3 mins thereafter. And there are 3MU calls
that you get whacked 3 mus for the first 3 minutes and a MU per minute 
after that. Some of these are MORE EXPENSIVE than an instate LD called to 
a farther point under the new 'flattened' LD rates. This is a bit 
enbarassing probably for the phone co...

Residences are another story, and can get various radiuses of unlimited service.

The rates are soon to change to much smaller time increments.

So you were NOT getting cheated by much.