pae@central.uucp (Phil Earnhardt) (07/23/90)
My folks have developed a rural area in central North Carolina of about a dozen 10-acre tracts. They put in a private road and have a power gate at its entrance. There's also a telephone. The phone will be programmed with 2-digit codes for each residence and the owners will be able to open the gate via the phone connection. The problem is that Southern Bell wants to charge business rates for the line. Southern Bell said that there are about five lines in the state that fall into this category and that they had decided that they qualify as business lines, even though they seem to fall through the cracks of the guidelines. I can see a reasonable case for calling this either a residence or a business line. Does anyone have any insights about this particular case? If not, what sort of procedure can my folks go through to appeal this decision? phil PS As an aside, it was very sad to see the electric and phone lines being buried separately. Is there a good reason why they couldn't use the same trenches?
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (07/24/90)
netwise!pae@central.uucp (Phil Earnhardt) writes: > The phone will be programmed with 2-digit codes for each residence and the > owners will be able to open the gate via the phone connection [...] The > problem is that Southern Bell wants to charge business rates for the line. We have a similar situation in our coop (I don't know how popular coops are outside of the US; it is an apartment building, owned jointly by the residents of the building) with the phone for the superintendant's apartment. NYTel insists that we have two choices; either the phone can be listed in the super's name and get residential rates, or it can be listed as "Superintendant, 295 St. John's Place", in which case we will get charged business rates. The reason we want the latter is because we change supers about once a year. We don't plan it that way, but that's how it seems to work out :-(. If the phone is in the super's name, it's either ends up staying listed in the old name, or it's a hassle to get the listing changed to the new name. Besides, we would like people to be able to look up our super by the address of the bulding, not by the super's name, which they probably don't know. Is NYTel correct to try and charge us business rates? Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy [Moderator's Note: The reason you are being asked to pay business rates for the super's phone is because the conducting of business is the main reason the phone is installed there, as per your request for an entry which reflects your building's location and management. PT]
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (07/25/90)
In article <10042@accuvax.nwu.edu> you write: >..., it was very sad to see the electric and phone lines being buried >separately. Is there a good reason why they couldn't use the same trenches? I suppose it depends on how you feel about the possibility of 10KV shorting to your phone line. My sister-in-law recently arranged to have the power lines in front of her house buried (it really improves the view.) The power company did a great deal of design, followed by a great deal of excavation, to get the power lines nice and deep and out of the way. I expect the phone company will just use the usual little plow to run the wires down the middle or side of the road. The phone company doesn't have to be anywhere near as careful since the voltages are so much lower, and with the wires underground, the lightning problem is also greatly reduced. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 25-Jul-1990 1345) (07/26/90)
From: Dale Neiburg Organization: National Public Radio In TELECOM Digest, vol 10, issue 509, Phil Earnhardt asks: > As an aside, it was very sad to see the electric and phone lines > being buried separately. Is there a good reason why they couldn't > use the same trenches? One reason is a problem that at this very moment has my wife turning gray before her time. She's a civil engineer, employed by the water authority in a Virginia jurisdiction suburban to Washington, D.C. Their main pumping station has just added three new pumps (don't know the horsepower, but each is driven by an electric motor about four stories tall). Everything is just fine till one or more of the pumps are run at variable speed. When that happens, high order harmonics (we're talking 30th-40th harmonics) are generated back onto the VEPCO power line and crosstalk into C&P telephone cables buried in the same trench, with such levels as to overpower phone signals (I assume non-multiplexed analog, since we're still talking audio-frequency harmonics). Incidentally, the power service to the pump station has harmonic filters on it. Maybe. All the consultant has been able to tell her about what's inside the cabinet is that it's "either transformers or capacitors", which in turn tells you something about consultants. All parties insist that their parts of the system are in spec--it's just that now and then phone service gets screwed up for about 1/4 of the county. This probably wouldn't be a problem for a residential installation, unless you have one helluva home workshop -- but is one good reason to keep power and telco separated as far as possible. Opinions expressed are my own. Dale Neiburg (202)-822-2402 (Voice only)
wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (07/26/90)
List the phone in the name of Lester P. Zygote or such. That won't solve the problem of listing the building, but it will solve the problem of listing the super's name every year. If the super wants her/his name in the book, buy a second listing. Oh, and get a deposit to cover his calls to Timbucktoo. wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM pob 570-335 33257-0335
zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil (Rich Zellich) (07/27/90)
In the case of our condominium, since we are registered with the state as a corporation (of some special sort devised for such owner-associations), SW Bell insisted on the business rate. So, instead, we had a second residential line run from one of the units with a cooperative owner and now have it billed as a residential line. We also did two other things: (1) We had outgoing long-distance disallowed, just as a safety (since the phone only accepts two-digit codes and dials corresponding local seven-digit numbers, there's not much chance for toll fraud, but somebody could always foul up programing the seven-digit numbers ... or tap into the line, I suppose, since it's more exposed than the other lines in the building); (2) Selected measured service instead of flat rate (in Missouri, we have the luxury of flat rate still being the norm, and measured service only an experiment - the PUC is on *our* side in this state!) - this was done based on the idea that "security" let-me-in calls would be relatively low in number, and normally of only a few seconds, rather than minutes, duration. So far this has worked well, and we get monthly bills of around $2.50 for this line. Cheers, Rich
John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> (07/27/90)
Rich Zellich <zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil> writes: > (2) Selected measured service instead of flat rate... > So far this has worked well, and we > get monthly bills of around $2.50 for this line. How on earth do you pull that off? Here in Sunny California, the "FCC-Mandated 'Long Distance' access charge" is $3.50 alone. Then there is the four-something a month basic charge plus taxes. A friend who has some measured residence lines billed separately -- no feature (except TT) and no outgoing calls. The monthly bill comes to exactly $10.00. Looks like in Missouri you could get four lines for that! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
"John R. Covert 31-Jul-1990 2125" <covert@covert.enet.dec.com> (08/01/90)
From: Greg Monti Rich Zellich <zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil> writes: > (2) [We] Selected measured service instead of flat rate (in Missouri, we > have the luxury of flat rate still being the norm, and measured > service only an experiment - the PUC is on *our* side in this state!) No, the PUC is intelligent. Options and choices are what the phone system should offer consumers, not mandatory-gold-plating-and-nothing-else. > - this was done based on the idea that "security" let-me-in calls > would be relatively low in number, and normally of only a few seconds, > rather than minutes, duration. So far this has worked well, and we > get monthly bills of around $2.50 for this line. Oh, so you admit that there *is* a purpose to local measured service. There really *are* people who will make less than the large number of local calls needed to economically justify (to the intelligent consumer) flat rate service. But, no, once you pay $20 a month, your local calls are "free" and it's important to get "free" things, right? Here in Virginia: Flat Rate Service is $19.68 a month, including Subscriber Line Charge and touch tone. Economy is $9.20 including SLC and TT with local calls $0.098 each. For 25 outgoing local calls a month (remember, busies, intercept recordings and no-answers are free and not everybody has teenagers at home), the total using Economy is $11.65 a month. That's $8.03 a month cheaper than Flat Rate, a savings of $96.36 a year. Of *course* we should have optional measured service. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822 2633
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) (08/02/90)
In article <10282@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 31-Jul-1990 2125) writes: > Of *course* we should have optional measured service. Sure, and if we could depend on the LOC and the PUC not making it mandatory it'd be great. The problem is that in practice optional measured service is he thin end of the wedge, so that measured ends up being the only type of service offered. Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>