Michael_Krause.henr801E@xerox.com (06/02/89)
I'm getting nauseous hearing about all of these phone services being talked about on this dl. You people toss references to the services around like they're free or something. (Sarcasm mode has been on since the begining of this msg, no hook-up charge involved). In Wayne County, NY New York Tel will let us, those of us who already pay over $35 just for the grand pleasure of using the noisey, intermittant pulse only services of a private line, will let us pay an additional $2.21 per month to be able to dial our phones with TONES!! And if we sign up for these services before July 21 we won't be charged the $9.20 hook-up charge!! We can also enjoy the furturistic features of call waiting, call blocking, speed dialing (max of 8 numbers) and who knows what all else as a package deal. Buy now to avoid the $15.50 hook-up charge and you can then begin to pay $13+ per month. Sorry, you missed the deadline, Sarcasm Mode turned off. Is NYT for real, do real people in the rest of the world get charged rates like this? It's not like NYT has to get out of their chair or anything to enable these services, is it? I thought it was bad when I paid a base rate of just over $30 to get a lousy connection that might let me carry on a short 300 bps modem conversation to my office just 30 miles away, long distance at that. Do I really want to pay almost $50 per month to utilize the telephonic state of the art? Mike Krause Xerox Corporation The remarks above are my own and do not reflect the opinions of any other irrational human being.
rdr@killer.dallas.tx.us (Dean Riddlebarger) (06/06/89)
[ Large paragraph questioning the high cost of local service and features deleted........] [ Basic question: Is this cost rational, and why don't we talk about it more?] Well, you probably don't see a lot of discussion about this because talk in this group tends to be towards features and other technical material. The fact that local service, from the RBOCs as well as independent telcos, is quickly stripping away any possible cost benefits from LD competition, has been duly noted. But, since the realistic [pragmatic?] solution is to band together and petition or pester various state and federal agencies, there's not much more we can do in this group. So, while it would be nice to see a serious surge in telco activism sparked within the net, I think you will find that most people would rather just deal with the tech side. FYI, you are not alone out there on the coast. Both here in Cleveland and back in Chicago I found that my local service costs far outstripped my LD in terms of price/performance. Feel any better....? :-) Dean Riddlebarger Systems Consultant - AT&T 216-348-6863 [work] uucp: att!crfax!crnsnwbt!rdr
lars@salt.acc.com (Lars Poulsen) (06/06/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0186m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> Michael_Krause.henr801E@xerox.com writes: > In Wayne County, NY New York Tel > [pulse-only private-line service is over $35/month] > [tone dialing offered as a new service for $2.21/month, $9.20 hook-up] >furturistic features of call waiting, call blocking, speed dialing (max of >8 numbers) and who knows what all else as a package deal. Buy now to avoid >the $15.50 hook-up charge and you can then begin to pay $13+ per month. >Is NYT for real, do real people in the rest of the world get charged rates >like this? It's not like NYT has to get out of their chair or anything to >enable these services, is it? I thought it was bad when I paid a base rate >of just over $30 to get a lousy connection that might let me carry on a >short 300 bps modem conversation to my office just 30 miles away, long >distance at that. These rates are certainly much higher than what the much-maligned GTE is charging me; for $22.50/month I get two private lines, one tone and one pulse. For another $6.50/month I could get a feature pack; I am not taking any of those, though; I think this is grossly overpriced. One new offering has me intrigued, though: They have just announced a new expanded feature pack which includes camp-on !!! I think it was $11/month for *all* optional features. Is that a true camp-on, or is it just "busy number redialing" (which is the official name) ? I'd expect camp-on for local calls, redialing for toll calls. It always seems to be toll calls that get the frustrating permanent busy. And for a couple of hundred dollars, I could buy a very fine demon dialer of my own :-). / Lars Poulsen <lars@salt.acc.com> (800) 222-7308 or (805) 963-9431 ext 358 ACC Customer Service Affiliation stated for identification only My employer probably would not agree if he knew what I said !!