Jack Decker <Jack.Decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org> (06/20/91)
I have a question that one of you telecom managers might be able to
help me with.
The situation is this: A radio station has offices and transmitter in
a small town that is right on the edge of a LATA boundary. Naturally,
the bulk of their business (and their listeners) are in a larger town
that is in the adjacent LATA.
What they wanted to do was get an Foreign Exchange line from an
exchange that is adjacent to theirs, but across the LATA boundary, and
that is a local call to most of the areas they do business with (I
should mention that the exchange they are in is a GTE exchange with no
Extended Area Service to ANY other exchange, while the exchanges they
want to reach are in Bell areas which do have EAS to other exchanges
in the area).
Unfortunately, because of the LATA boundary, the local telco cannot
provide an FX line. AT&T could, but the monthly charge is horrendous
AND they charge for calls (both outgoing AND INCOMING) made on the FX
line on a per-minute basis (no mistake, they're allowed to do that on
FX lines in this state, believe it or not!).
The way around this per-minute charge used to be what was called an
off-premise extension. What this meant was that if you have a
location in the exchange that you want the FX service from where you
can physically place a phone, you have service installed there and
then have an "off premise extension" placed in the adjacent exchange.
But, AT&T says they don't offer off-premise extensions anymore (it's
no longer in their tariffs). What they DO offer is something called
off-premise service, which (according to the AT&T rep) "requires a PBX
at at least ONE end of the connection."
I'm wondering if anyone has actually used off-premise service and is
familiar enough with it to tell me what is the bare minimum amount of
equipment actually required on each end to make it work. Keep in mind
that we can get few feet of space to place some equipment in the
exchange that we want to get the FX-type service from.
Our other thought was, since the two exchanges are indeed adjacent to
each other, to find the physical exchange boundary and lease a small
patch of land on each side of the boundary and then shoot very
short-range microwave, light beams, or "whatever" for the hundred feet
or so necessary to cross that boundary (I have an exchange map and the
exchange boundary doesn't follow the road boundaries, it actually
bisects sections diagonally, so conceivably one could even lease a
small patch of land on each side of the boundary and run an
underground cable between the two). I'm wondering if anyone has ever
done anything like this to reach an adjacent exchange (or knows of
someone who has). Installing two business phone lines at adjacent
physical locations on opposite sides of the exchange/LATA boundary
would doubtless be the cheapest solution of all in the long run, but
I'm just wondering what we might run up against in trying to do this.
What's really bad about this is that the Michigan Public Service
Commission has ordered the phone companies of Michigan to begin
offering optional calling plans for flat rate calling to adjacent
exchanges. Both Michigan Bell and GTE came back with proposals for
plans that were NOT flat-rated, and that in fact were more like
discount toll plans (in the case of GTE, certain calls would actually
have cost MORE under the optional plan!). So now the whole thing is
bogged down and it may be years before the MPSC order is actually
implemented (if it doesn't get derailed entirely).
I wonder if there are any statistics available on the number of cities
and/or exchanges which have actually increased the size of local
calling areas since divestiture? Here in Michigan many areas
(particularly the rural areas) have ridiculously small local calling
areas (in many cases there is NO toll-free calling to ANY adjacent
exchanges), and the MPSC has steadfastly refused to grant any new
Extended Area Service for about the last 20 years. I wonder if that's
unusual, or if other states are just as restrictive?
Via D'Bridge 1:232/10 06/21 17:39
Jack Decker, via 1:120/183 (Great Lakes Internet<->Fidonet Gateway)
Internet: Jack.Decker@f8.n154.z1.fidonet.org
UUCP: ...!mailrus!umich!wsu-cs!royaljok!154!8!Jack.Deckerbill@toto.info.com (Bill Cerny) (06/25/91)
In article <telecom11.483.11@eecs.nwu.edu> Jack Decker writes: > Unfortunately, because of the LATA boundary, the local telco cannot > provide an FX line. AT&T could, but the monthly charge is horrendous > AND they charge for calls (both outgoing AND INCOMING) made on the FX > line on a per-minute basis AT&T stopped offering FX service a while back; what they quoted you were the rates for a FG A line (they don't want to facilitate resale). Metromedia, Williams Telecom, et. al., offer interLATA FX service. I'd recommend you find out which carrier has the nearest POP to your station, and ask them for a quote. Ask them to waive installation charges, too. > I'm wondering if anyone has actually used off-premise service and is > familiar enough with it to tell me what is the bare minimum amount of > equipment actually required on each end to make it work. "Virtual" equipment is fine, from my experience. ;-) S uggest to your carrier's technician that the dial tone on the far end is coming from "your" switch. To minimize curiousity, schedule the OPX local loop and local phone service installations on different dates. Bill Cerny <bill@toto.info.com> | ATTMail: !denwa!bill