covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 15-Sep-1989 0204) (09/15/89)
Clive Carmock (cca@cs.exeter.ac.uk) asks: >P.S. I would be interested to hear from anyone who could give me billing >example of the different call rates/times in the USA, and would be interested >to have details of the OFF PEAK LOCAL calls to residential customers - >ie; do you have to subscribe to a service to get these free? Things are incredibly complex here. Remember that we have hundreds (or is it thousands) of telephone companies, each with different rates. I'll present just a few examples. First, AT&T's rates for calls which originate in one state and terminate in a different state (as of 1 July 1989): Standard Rates: Mileage Initial Minute Additional Minutes Discount Periods 1-10 .18 .17 11-22 .21 .20 33% off Sun-Fri 5P-11P 23-55 .23 .22 56-124 .23 .22 48% off Every day 11P-8A 125-292 .23 .23 All day Saturday 293-430 .24 .23 Until 5P Sunday 431-925 .24 .24 926-3000 .25 .25 3001-4250 .31 .30 4251-5750 .33 .32 Note that we can call coast to coast for a maximum of 25 cents (about 15p) per minute (similar to the U.K. b rate, actually, but for a much longer distance). This is the end of the simple example. There are all sorts of discount plans that you can subscribe to which get you discounts on the above rates (and other companies have similar rates and similar discount plans). If your call is not crossing a state boundary, then the rates will be regulated by each of the fifty states. In Massachusetts, each carrier has two sets of rates, one set for calls that do not cross a LATA (local access and transport area) boundary, and another for calls which do cross the boundary. These are quite often drastically more expensive than AT&T's long haul rates. It costs me more to make a 1 minute call to a point in Massachusetts only 11 miles away than to call 3000 miles to Los Angeles. Additional minutes are lower, but a call to a point 86 or more miles away within my LATA in Massachusetts costs 55 cents for the first minute and 23 cents each additional minute, so more expensive no matter how long the call is than a call up to 460 miles away outside the state. The rates for local calls vary from town to town. There are places where all local calling is unlimited (for both residential and business customers), places where all businesses pay measured rates and all residences are unlimited, places where even residential customers cannot get unlimited rates, places where different rates for local calls are available depending on the chosen base rate, places where there is a per-call charge for unlimited duration, places where there are charges based on both distance and time within the "local" calling area, places where the rates for local calls are the same no matter what time of day, places where there are off-peak rates for local calls, and so on. The size of local calling areas varies drastically. From where I live, only a few of the adjacent towns are local calls, and one town which has a common border with our town is 19 cents for the first minute and 9 cents each addi- tional minute. Yet in Atlanta, the diameter of the local calling area is about sixty miles. There has been a lot of discussion of this in the archives, and if Patrick decides to publish them, I'm sure you'll get as many different examples of rates as there are readers of this digest. /john [Moderator's Note: As JC points out, the variety of rates just go on and on and on. Fifty states, each with a regulatory agency to set the rates within that state, a federal structure (FCC) for interstate calls; and some local community involvement in a few places. Typically, rates mile per mile <interstate> are less expensive than for the same number of miles <intrastate>. Tariff and rate publications are large enough that they fill up entire rooms in telco accounting offices. PT]