jyoull@andy.bgsu.edu (Jim Youll) (11/08/90)
The calls were handled by a company called "Afford A Call". They used to be called "Litel" but that's irrelevant. I think I understand this correctly, and hope that I used the correct terminology to describe what they do. Basically, an aggregator buys a chunk of service from ATT or somebody who is actually a long distance provider, and receives a discount for the volume purchase. They then resell smaller bites of the bandwidth to guys like me at a miniscule profit and hope that I stay with them for a long time. Then they go out of business and I switch to someone else. They are starting to offer 800 service and some other features like six-second billing, but that's mainly a function of their billing software, not the route the calls take. Jim PS: Remember that this information is worth approximately 10% less than you paid for it, due to inflation. [Moderator's Note: Hey! That's not nice to say. The subscribers here pay premium rates for this little journal. PAT
cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (11/09/90)
What carrier handled the calls that bgsuvax!jyoull@cis.ohio-state.edu (Jim Youll) wrote of here? What does "aggregator" mean? >My last phone bill listed long distance calls to Cleveland, etc. >but also showed calls to : > WASZ 2 MD > PHSZ 43 PA >These calls were handled by an aggregator. Any idea why the funny >destination names, and what they mean? Moderator's Note: Carl, the answer to your question follows in the next three messages. PAT]