morris@jade.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Morris) (08/19/89)
A friend of mine is currently providing a dial-up service using regular phone lines and a couple cheap answering machines. I'm curious - what is involved in getting a couple 900- or <ac>-976- lines? Mike Morris UUCP: Morris@Jade.JPL.NASA.gov #Include quote.cute.standard | The opinions above probably do not even come cat flames.all > /dev/null | close to those of my employer(s), if any. [Moderator's Note: To get a 976 number from Illinois Bell, for starters you drop off an application for same at their office accompanied by a Cashier's Check for $2000. You must have another phone line in addition to the 976 number. 976 is a prefix in the downtown area only. You must have an office downtown where it can be installed. Recordings are limited to 57 seconds. You set the rate to be charged; telco gets half of it. There is a minimum number of calls per day required -- at least a thousand -- and you agree to pay Bell for any shortfall under that number. For example, you charge 50 cents per call. Bell gets 25 cents. If you miss the minimum number of calls required by 100, then you owe Bell (100 x .25 = $25.00). No adult subject matter and no interactive conversation is permitted on 976 in Chicago. Illinois Bell does not operate 900 service here; it is all outside vendors, and mostly monopolized by the Nine Hundred Service Corporation. After your application for a 976 number is approved, allow about six weeks for connection. And one more thing: you agree to accept chargebacks -- as approved by Bell -- for any uncollectibles. Uncollectibles are people who move without paying their phone bill; establish connection via fraudulent schemes so that an innocent third party is billed and then protests; and 'one time goodwill writeoffs' for people whose bratty children ran the phone bill up without the parent's knowledge. What a deal! Of course you do get the benefit of easy collection from your listeners who get charged on their phone bill, and most of the time they pay. PT]
john@apple.com (John Higdon) (08/22/89)
> [Moderator's Note: To get a 976 number from Illinois Bell, for starters > you drop off an application for same at their office accompanied by a > Cashier's Check for $2000. Ditto for California. Your equipment must be located in the area served by the 976 prefix. Downtown LA, downtown San Diego, financial district, San Francisco, Santa Clara (Space Park), and downtown Santa Rosa are the locations that I know about for their respective area codes. You must have a minimum of 6 lines and you are charged standard rate for these lines. Pac*Bell gets a "transport charge" that is based on the length of your program, not on your rate. For a three-minute program (the maximum) the per-call transport is seventy cents. There is no minimum amount of calls you have to receive. Currently, interactive is allowed on 976, but Pac*Bell is encouraging migration to their 900 services. You are subject to "charge backs", just like Illinois. "Harmful matter" is no longer permitted on 976, and Pac*Bell is aggressively reviewing programs to make sure no one is cheating. Now that the strike is over, you can probably get connected within 2-3 weeks. That minimum on Illinois Bell sounds scary. If you get no calls at all on Pac*Bell 976, all you owe is the cost of those 6 (or however many) trunks that you have, which amounts to about $130 total. You get (on a three minute program that costs the caller $2.00) $1.30 per call, so it doesn't take much to break even. If your service allows, you can declare a shorter program and get more of your $2.00. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !