covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 06-Dec-1990 1105) (12/07/90)
From: John Keator, NPR
Subject: AT&T USA Direct Cut/Restored
Organization: National Public Radio 202-822-2800
From the {Washington Post}, 4 Dec 90
AT&T Service Cut, Restored
BRUSSELS, 3 Dec -- The international talks here are supposed
to be about opening up international trade and making it more
competitive, but somebody forgot to tell the state-run Belgian phone
company.
As U.S. officials and business executives arrived here for the
talks this weekend, they found that a special program by American
Telephone & Telegraph Co. that allows cheaper calls to the United
States had disappeared from their hotel rooms.
An angry Randolph Lund, AT&T's vice president for government
relations who is here for the talks, called it blatant protectionism
on the part of the Belgian telephone monopoly. He said that AT&T
service representatives found that the telephone company had shut of
the service, called AT&T USA Direct, in the two hotels in which the
American delegation was housed in order to collect higher service
rates.
The service was restored early this morning, after complaints
to the Belgian phone company and an official protest to Belgian
authorities by the U.S. embassy.
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I have also has this experience, but the blockage ocurred in
the hotel. In several London hotels, they now bill a call to the USA
direct number a flat charge of 2.50 pounds (@$4.85). Other hotels in
London, including one in which I often stay, encourage the use of USA
direct and charge nothing for its use. In many countries the call to
the USA direct number is billed at local call rates, which can also be
fairly excessive from hotel rooms expecially where the call is timed.