roy@phri.uucp (Roy Smith) (05/11/89)
A few weeks ago I had to call a company in the Virgin Islands. I
wasn't sure if they were on St. Thomas (part of the USVI) or on Tortola
(part of the British Virgin Islands, the BVI). It turns out you can call
either by dialing a "normal" long distance call -- area code 809 followed
by 7 digits, even though the BVI only has 5-digit phone numbers. Anyway, I
called directory assistance by dialing 1-809-555-1212 and got an operator
who asked "which island please" and patched me through to Tortola directory
assistance over what sounded like a radio-telephone link (the USVI and the
BVI each consist of 3 large islands plus a number of smaller ones). I
suspect the initial operator I spoke to was on the mainland because when I
said I wanted Roadtown, he asked again which island I wanted. Roadtown is
the capital of the BVI and by far the largest city (if you can call it
that; I don't think it has 2500 people) in the BVI -- any local of either
the US or BVI would know that without a second thought.
Anyway, I got my phone bill the other day. The DA call was $0.60,
under the heading "Directory Assistance, Canada and Area Code 809". I've
never been charged for DA before, even DA calls to Canada, so this was
curious (but hardly worth making a fuss over). The interesting thing was
that I made a total of 4 toll calls to the VI that day -- 2 1-minute calls
for $0.13 and 2 2-minute calls for $0.26. That one quick DA call, which is
"supposed to be free", cost me almost as much as the 4 toll calls combined,
totalling 8 minutes! This was all AT&T.
--
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"john@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (John Higdon) (05/14/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0161m09@vector.dallas.tx.us>, roy@phri.uucp (Roy Smith) writes: > Anyway, I got my phone bill the other day. The DA call was $0.60, > under the heading "Directory Assistance, Canada and Area Code 809". I've > never been charged for DA before, even DA calls to Canada, so this was Where on earth have you been all these years? AT&T has been charging for DA for YEARS now. Initially it was $.50 and then later raised to $.60. I didn't realize that it was *only* $.60 to the Virgin Islands. What a deal! -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !