jsol@bu-it.bu.edu (07/13/89)
Boston has several plans: 1) measured service. each call is measured, including local calls. Only available as the only type of service in your home (you can't get measured and unmeasured service in the same house). 2) unmeasured: you get a small (?) local calling area. everything else is either measured or toll. cost is in between measured and metropolitan 3) metropolitan: entire boston region (most of 617) is local and included in the service. There are really 3 tiers to metropolitan service. The outer regions of the metro area have a larger calling area (for instance, Stoneham, MA (617-438) can call Lynnfield (617-334) but Somerville (617-623) can't for free. Places outside the metro area (like Framingham, 508-879) can opt for metro service and place most 1-617-XXX-XXXX calls free. I live in Somerville, but with a Cambridge phone number. Cambridge has the best unlimited local calling service for my calling pattern. I don't have metropolitan service, however I do make a few out-of-local calls and pay the message units to the phone company. Not enough revenue to warrant switching to metro service tho. Oh, there is also suburban service. That's metro minus the Boston Central Exchange (which is where most calls go). If you never call Boston Central, you might find this a useful feature. Then there's Hartford, CT. They are expanding their already huge local calling area in leaps and bounds. Hartford can call all of its suburbs, including some other cities (New Britain just became a local call). I think it's part of their desire to make businesses in other areas flourish by making them a local call to the Hartford market (or the other way around, make the Hartford market better by allowing people from, say, Canton (203-693) able to call Downtown). Hartford has the largest local calling area *by* *far* than any other place in the state. New Haven is starting to play the same sort of game, but they have a long way to go to make something as good as Hartford has. SNET has 3 plans now for local calls. Flat rate (most expensive), Measured rate (next cheapest) and Select-a-call. Select-a-call breaks it down like Boston's LCA so that calls to the same exchange (Newington to Newington) are 1c/minute, calls to Hartford are 2c and calls to say Rockville (203-872) (on the other side of Hartford, about 20 or so miles away) are 3c. I did extensive research on calling areas in NYC, parts of New Jersey, and Los Angeles. If there is enough desire to hear about them, I will post them too. --jsol [Moderator's Note: Jon Solomon, aka 'jsol' was founder of TELECOM Digest, and Moderator for several years. Yes indeed, please Jon, post another message or two, summarizing the local plans for the cities you've been in. I'll do Chicago, and readers are invited to summarize the local calling scheme in their own community. PT]