telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (05/03/89)
Michael Chin, in the previous message, questions my comments last weekend regarding the new MCI Long Distance plan for residence subscribers. He asks, 'why was this posted so early?' What is 'too early' about an announcement in a press release sent out on Thursday, April 27, with a request that it be distributed over the weekend of April 28-30 for a program which takes effect on May 1? I think the timing was about right. If Mr. Chin's question is why did *I* announce it 'so early' without waiting for responses from AT&T/Sprint, I would have to ask a counter question of my own to him: Why would either of those organizations bother replying if the media did not first announce this new program? Is Mr. Chin suggesting that the [Wall Street Journal], the [New York Times], and the [Chicago Tribune] -- to just name three papers I read each day -- should print the press release but [TELECOM Digest] should not have printed it? If he thinks I should not print news releases sent to me by phone companies and others, then someone should tell his employer to not send me so much stuff! Apparently both MCI Communications Corp. and his employer think I should talk about them as often as they can convince me to do so, if the volume of printed press releases, etc is of any significance. Not to worry, Mr. Chin! I'm sure AT&T will have something for me on the subject before long! They always do..... Then Mr. Chin says if I am going to mention the AT&T Reach Out Plans, I should do so accurately and completely. Aside from the fact that there are nearly a hundred such 'plans', i.e. one for each state for intrastate purposes; one for each state for interstate purposes, with many being in common to the others, the purpose of the original message was not so much to re-hash AT&T's long distance calling plan as it was to announce a new one and highlight what I believed was the major difference in the two; namely the additional evening time available. Mr. Chin points out that by paying extra to AT&T, one can get an additional fifteen percent discount on evening calls. This is true, however MCI's new plan charges *nothing extra* for the evening hours, and gives the overnight rate -- not just 'an additional fifteen percent discount', but with long distance calls now just costing pennies per minute anyway, this is not really a major point. Likewise, by paying extra to AT&T, one gets a five percent discount on daytime calls, meaning that you pay extra to AT&T to get daytime rates roughly equal to what MCI charges during the day for nothing extra. Even that does not hold true everywhere however! Here in Illinois, our 'Reach Out Illinois' Plan includes something called 'interstate transparency', which for 85 cents per month extra technically allows interstate calling on the intrastate plan. If you have this, as I do, you *cannot* also have the five percent daytime discount at present, because of technical difficulties in billing intrastate/interstate calls and giving the five percent discount which they are not permitted to do on intrastate (within Illinois at least) calls. AT&T also allows you to pay $2 extra per month on Reach Out America and have your Calling Card/Call Me card calls billed at Reach Out rate
klb@att.uucp (05/08/89)
Lighten up Patrick! As you know, people get a little touchy when their company is attacked. (I know that you didn't attack AT&T and I have yet to read anything where you have.) Anyone who lives in our society sees AT&T attacked daily by its competitors in the printed and spoken media. Being an employee of AT&T I (and undoubtedly Mr. Chin) know that most of those attacks are gross misrepresentations of the facts. I believe that Mr. Chin was overreacting to what he thought was an attack on AT&T's pricing schemes. (Incidentally, I do not believe that you were attacking AT&T.) I'm sure you realize that a large percentage of the readers of Netnews and this news group are AT&T employees. Try to keep that in mind when posting future articles. Personally, I think that you do a good job of moderating this newsgroup and I look forward to reading the postings. Keep up the good work. (Including press releases on what the competition is doing. ;-) ) Kevin L. Blatter AT&T - Bell Labs
royc@uunet.uu.net (roy crabtree) (05/10/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0155m07@vector.dallas.tx.us>, telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > Michael Chin, in the previous message, questions my comments last weekend > regarding the new MCI Long Distance plan for residence subscribers. He > asks, 'why was this posted so early?' [elided] > Not to worry, Mr. Chin! I'm sure AT&T will have something for me on the > subject before long! They always do..... > > Then Mr. Chin says if I am going to mention the AT&T Reach Out Plans, > I should do so accurately and completely. Aside from the fact that there [elided] > Mr. Chin points out that by paying extra to AT&T, one can get an additional > fifteen percent discount on evening calls. This is true, however MCI's new > plan charges *nothing extra* for the evening hours, and gives the overnight [elided] > AT&T also allows you to pay $2 extra per month on Reach Out America and > have your Calling Card/Call Me card calls billed at Reach Out rate You've been lambasted as pro-AT&T; now it sems like you're being hit for being anti-AT&T!!! One comment relative to the new plans, however: These are sounding one whole heckuvalot like the variable rate structures PUCs (thersthatwordagain) used to love so eliminate so much. How about this as an idea: Have the common carriers be _required_ to print on the bill to the customer what any available alternate carier would have charged (overall, mind you!) for the same calls, and _require_ them to print a detailed comparative analysis on demand for a customer against other carriers. To be fair this comparison should be forced on a "best service price" basis; i.e., no fair comparing the best AT&T rate with the worst Sprint rate. A more palatable form of this would be to require common carriers to print a cost analysis to a consumer against actual usage versus known rate structures with an eye toward _minimizing_the_bill_, based on past usage, or to allow a user to ask for an estimate given a prospective usage pattern. If you realy want to spook the carriers, the FCC could require a carrier to give the customer a bill based on the lowest possible bill among all plans over a running year interval of time ... yes, I'm dreaming .... roy a. crabtree uunet!ami!royc 201-566-8584
miket@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Trout) (05/31/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0159m05@vector.dallas.tx.us>, lzaz!klb@att.uucp writes: > I'm sure you realize that a large percentage of the readers of Netnews > and this news group are AT&T employees. Try to keep that in mind when > posting future articles. And a large percentage of the readers of Netnews and this news group are white males. Should Patrick bear that in mind as well? If this is intended to be a forum for "news," Patrick's responsibility is to report what's happening. And that's regardless of what AT&T, MCI or anybody else wants or likes. And it seems to me that that's exactly what he's been doing. When Patrick was criticized for being both pro-AT&T and anti-AT&T, I knew he must be doing something right! -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson [Moderator's Note: Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it a lot. See you all tomorrow! PT]