SJS132@psuvm.psu.edu (Steve Shimatzki) (02/27/91)
Here's a few for ya: #1 Has anyone seen the new ad for MCI, saying something about just wait till March 18 ... Anyone got the inside scoop? I hate waiting! #2 Would it be possible to use Call Forwarding, to call long distance, and not pay for it? Heres the Scenario: I call a friend who is right between me and an area that is LD for me. His number then forwards to another number, but into the LD area. Do I get the local call, or billed for the LD number that it was forwarded to? What if I did this with a few people, and forwared a forwareded call? If it is possible, is there any disadvantages to it? (ie, poor quality call; Limited use; lots of people involved?) Steve [Moderator's Note: Addressing #2, each phone line only is billed for what it dials. Therefore you would pay for a call to your friend in the intermediate area, and he would pay for a call to the next area. If it so happens you both wind up paying for only a local call as a result, so be it. Where the reality enters is that very rarely can you string together a series of local calls and wind up paying less than for a single long distance call. The exception might be if all the intermediate points had untimed 'free' local service. But a call in the middle of the night from one side of the country to another is somewhere around 12 cents a minute on Reach Out ... how many local connections linked together with chain-forwarding would it require to cover the same distance, and how many local calls in the path would cost five or ten cents each? And who would pay the intermediate people for their services as telephone operators? Using various configurations of call-forwarding is not an effecient way to avoid long distance charges in most instances. In a limited number of fairly local or short-haul toll calls, *maybe* -- until you wear out the patience of the people in the middle with your penny-wise but pound- foolish experiments. PAT]
sbrack@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steven S. Brack) (02/28/91)
In article <telecom11.162.8@eecs.nwu.edu> SJS132@psuvm.psu.edu (Steve Shimatzki) writes: > Would it be possible to use Call Forwarding, to call long distance, and > not pay for it? Heres the Scenario: I call a friend who is right > between me and an area that is LD for me. His number then forwards > to another number, but into the LD area. Do I get the local call, or > billed for the LD number that it was forwarded to? What if I did > this with a few people, and forwared a forwareded call? If it is > possible, is there any disadvantages to it? (ie, poor quality call; > Limited use; lots of people involved?) My uncle recently moved from GTE territory to Ohio Bell territory. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making the calls he gets from GTE territory toll calls (1+7D). So, what he did was have a second line installed to my house, which he uses only as a forwarding line to his other number. As it works out, he ends up saving money (very little) and his clients can call him without any extra phone charge. Needless to say, this situation is only cost effective to to the current turf war between Ohio Bell and GTE in northwest Ohio. There are literally areas in Toledo where toll calls are required for distances as short as 3/4 mile. Incidently, until Judge Green's decision, my house did not have any sort of demark, just the house wires nutted together with Bell's wires. Steven S. Brack sbrack@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu sbrack@ewf.eng.ohio-state.edu (Avoid sending here, if possible) [Moderator's Note: You mention your uncle is saving a little money each month from this arrangement. Have the savings yet been sufficient to amoritze, or pay for the initial installation cost of the line being permanently forwarded and for the monthly charge for the phone sitting there doing nothing but forwarding calls? PAT]