john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (06/27/90)
AT&T NEWS BRIEFS
Tuesday, June 26, 1990
AD WIN -- The National Advertising Division ruled in favor of AT&T
in the latest round of long distance ad wars. US Sprint
challenged a print ad for AT&T's long-distance service that
stated: "On average, MCI and US Sprint take over 50 percent longer
than AT&T to set up a long-distance call." ... NAD said AT&T data
supported the claim that MCI and Sprint can take nine seconds or
more to set up a long-distance call [and] agreed that the seconds
can add up to hours where business offices are involved. ...
Advertising Age, p. 48.
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So, of course I had to do a little testing on my own. Picking some
busy-test numbers around the state and the nation, I timed the
interval between the pressing of the last digit and the appearance of
the busy signal. The results of many trials were quite consistent:
AT&T completes in an average of 3-4 seconds while Sprint and MCI
complete in an average of 6-8 seconds. I could detect no significant
difference in the speed of call setup between MCI and Sprint.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !