rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison) (10/12/89)
> The story below is from the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 1989, > > Rewriting the Book on Phone Rates > by Bruce Keppel > > (San Francisco)... what may be the most far-reaching regulatory >proposal every made by the California Public Utilities Commission. The big regulatory reform *I'm* waiting for is on in-state long distance charges. It costs me more to call Los Angeles at NIGHT rate than to call the East Coast during DAY rate -- on the SAME long distance company (true for AT&T, Sprint, and MCI, all three). Even more expensive than calling Los Angeles (400 miles) is calling Ukiah (150 or 200 miles), because the latter is in my LATA and thus Pac*Bell monopoly territory. Indeed, it seems that most of my phone calls are charged INVERSELY proportional to distance. What POSSIBLE justification can there be for leaving in-state rates so high? I pay six or seven times as much for some in-state calls as I would for comparable-distance interstate calls. Linc Madison rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu
roy@uunet.uu.net (Roy M. Silvernail) (10/14/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0442m09@vector.dallas.tx.us>, rmadison@euler.berkeley. edu (Linc Madison) writes: > The story below is from the Los Angeles Times of October 1, 1989, > distance charges. It costs me more to call Los Angeles at NIGHT rate > than to call the East Coast during DAY rate -- on the SAME long > distance company (true for AT&T, Sprint, and MCI, all three). Even > more expensive than calling Los Angeles (400 miles) is calling Ukiah > (150 or 200 miles), because the latter is in my LATA and thus Pac*Bell > monopoly territory. Indeed, it seems that most of my phone calls are > charged INVERSELY proportional to distance. > > What POSSIBLE justification can there be for leaving in-state rates so > high? I pay six or seven times as much for some in-state calls as I > would for comparable-distance interstate calls. Alaskans have much the same situation. I live in Anchorage, but I used to live in Kenai, about 60 air miles south. Calls from Kenai to Anchorage, *night* rate, were about $6 an hour, last time I checked. Compare this with about $6.50 an hour to _Seattle_ from Kenai on GCI. GCI is collecting signatures now to get in-state competition on the ballot. Alascom accuses GCI of wanting to skim the heavy-traffic routes and leave the Bush under-serviced, but a GCI rep recently dismissed that allegation. "Give us half that AT&T subsidy you rarely mention, and we'll be happy to service the whole state." Indeed, since deregulation began to force interstate rates down, Alaska's in-state rates have risen! Only one in-state reduction, of only 2 or 3 percent, was ever made by Alascom, and that seemed to be in answer to a barrage of ads by GCI asking for permission to compete. The situation extends farther than telephone service. Alaskanet provides the state's only packet-switching access. Through Alaskanet, you can access Tymnet or Telenet. (Tymnet is transparent; Telenet needs a login sequence) This connection is, however, subject to a Gateway surcharge of 4 dollars an hour! Translation? Accessing any of the major services like CompuServe or PeopleLink ends up at full prime-time rates 24 hours a day. Also, we don't get PC Pursuit access, and I'm not sure I could get on StarLink from here. The single good deal in net access is Computer Connection, the Usenet node here. (and he does it by calling UUNET through GCI) Roy M. Silvernail | UUCP: uunet!comcon!roy | "Life in the arctic is no picnic" [ah, but it's my account... of course I opine!] -touristy T-shirt SnailMail: P.O. Box 210856, Anchorage, Alaska, 99521-0856, U.S.A., Earth, etc.