leichter@lrw.com (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) (08/04/90)
My UUCP links require an in-state long-distance call (to a site about 15 miles from here). As in many places, such calls are quite expensive - not nearly as bad as what I see others are paying, but it does add up, even at the late-night rate at which I make most calls. It adds up to enough that I'm thinking about other options. One that might make sense is an FX line to the exchange to which I dial. What words should I use in talking to SNET to ask about such a beast? Another alternative I've considered is getting an 800 number and having the site I talk to poll me. (They aren't able to pick up the costs of a direct call.) The residential 800 services seem to be pretty cheap, but I'm not sure if they will work in-state, and if so how they would be billed. Anyone know? Any other suggestions for a way to cut these costs from the collected wisdom of the Telecom community? Jerry
"James M. Turner" <turner@ksr.com> (08/07/90)
leichter@lrw.com (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) writes: >My UUCP links require an in-state long-distance call (to a site about >15 miles from here). As in many places, such calls are quite >expensive - not nearly as bad as what I see others are paying, but it >does add up, even at the late-night rate at which I make most calls. Here at KSR, we've cut our phone bill from around $430 a month down to $108 by getting a leased line to our news feed. The cost breakdown is as follows: Leased line installation: $ 430 Two V.32 Modems w/4 wire mode $1600 Monthly Charge $ 108 Note that we got V.32s because they'll make nice modems if we ever decide to get rid of the leased line, you could use most plain-jane 2400 baud modems as long as they support leased line operations, and since you don't pay extra for the continuous operation, the low baud rate won't hurt. Of course, you can run SLIP very well at 9.6Kb... (which we don't.) We're polling Software Tool and Die (world), which is around 15 miles from our location, but intra-LATA. Name: James M. Turner Company: Kendall Square Research Email: turner@ksr.com, ksr!turner Phone: (617) 895-9400