zellich@st-louis-emh2.army.mil (Rich Zellich) (07/22/89)
In the TELECOM Digest, Volume 9, Issue 200: > (4) Least call call routing. If you do not specifically request a > specific long distance carrier, the local operating company should > route the call on the carrier with the lowest list price for the > given origin and destination. With stored program control exchanges, > this would be fairly simple to implement, and would spawn a new > level of competition between the long distance companies. Simple? Just what is the "lowest list price"? Rates from different service providers differ not only on first-minute or first-3-minute charges, but also on subsequent-minute charges. Which is cheaper often depends on how long you talk...how is the computer supposed to know if you're making a 1- or 3-minute call, or a 5-10 minute call? Does the system have to keep a customer-history log on you and use AI techniques to figure out how long you're *probably* going to talk? And how will it account for multiple subscribers using the same line? Not to mention knowing if you prefer a certain provider for calls to particular locations, due to line quality considerations... All in all, I think we'll be using 10288, et al, manually-entered access codes for a long time (those of us who aren't too lazy to not always use the "default" LD carrier.