telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (12/10/90)
MCI announced recently they will be starting to offer 900 service after the first of the year. A variety of programs will be available from a variety of information providers, making their 900 service similar to all the others. There is one exception: MCI has said they will arrange to limit charges to $4.00 on services pertaining to children, in an effort to anticipate and limit losses to parents whose children call without permission, i.e. Santa Claus messages, etc. MCI is to be congratulated for making this responsible effort to mitigate the expense otherwise incurred by unwitting users of 900 services. It was not clear to me if they intend to place the $4.00 limit on each *call*, or on total calls per billing period, or what. If one of our MCI readers has more information, they might like to pass it along. Patrick Townson
bill@toto.info.com (Bill Cerny) (12/11/90)
In article <15345@accuvax.nwu.edu> TELECOM Moderator writes: >MCI announced recently they will be starting to offer 900 service >after the first of the year. MCI's 900 service has been available since May from service bureaus. In fact, ValueLine (Amarillo, TX) is reselling MCI 900 service, and providing it on a switched termination basis from the DSC DEX 400 (but the per minute costs to the information provider are too high: $0.65!) This announcement concerns general availability to non-service bureaus (e.g., boiler rooms and garage operations). >A variety of programs will be available from a variety of >information providers, making their 900 service similar to all the >others. Variety, indeed! Since May, MCI has provided the greatest number of new dial-a-porn programs (and you thought Telesphere was sleazy). Check out all those ads in adult magazines with prefixes 226, 446, 776, 980 and 990. >There is one exception: MCI has said they >will arrange to limit charges to $4.00 on services pertaining to >children, in an effort to anticipate and limit losses to parents whose >children call without permission, i.e. Santa Claus messages, etc. This will apply to a narrow segment of programs, as you pointed out. At one time Sprint said they wouldn't bill more than $10 per call, but gave out waivers freely to information providers. >MCI is to be congratulated for making this responsible effort to >mitigate the expense otherwise incurred by unwitting users of 900 >services. MCI has a black eye from their adult programs, and is trying to mend their sullied reputation. >If one of our MCI readers has more information, they might like to >pass it along. Rather, if any of the MCI information providers have any more actual proof of MCI's arbitrary doubling of uncollectible withholdings from 10% to 20% (initially 4% in May), please post. Rumor: MCI is providing a twelve second grace period during which you can hang up and avoid all charges for the call. I'll find out when my phone bill arrives in a couple weeks... ;-) Bill Cerny bill@toto.info.com | attmail: !denwa!bill