levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt) (05/07/89)
On 5/2/89 jsol wrote that Lynn MA was in the metro Boston calling area. This is only true sometimes. If you live outside of the metro calling area and have "Metropolitan" calling (as I do), Lynn and Burlington are toll calls. This seems to be the case for some other areas as well (like Hyde Park). Dorchester and Mattapan get free calls to Lynn, but not to Burlington. Swampscott, Nahant, Scituate, and North Reading are shown in the metro phone books, but appear to be toll calls for most people with metro service. Ken -- Ken Levitt - via FidoNet node 1:16/390 UUCP: ...harvard!talcott!zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu
clements@bbn.com (05/12/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0158m03@vector.dallas.tx.us> Ken Levitt writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 158, message 3 of 8 > >On 5/2/89 jsol wrote that Lynn MA was in the metro Boston calling area. > >This is only true sometimes. [and goes on with another list of towns that may or may not be toll calls.] I cannot imagine what possible reason there could be for going into this level of detail on the net, but what do I know? :-) The basic point is that New England Telco charges different amounts for "Metropolitan" service depending on where you live. Roughly, in the richer suburbs they charge more and in the poorer suburbs they charge less. (Richer and poorer back when the tariff was created, long ago, not necessarily true today.) To justify the price differences they include slightly larger calling areas in the higher-priced suburbs. The upshot is that you can't tell what is a toll call by whether you have to dial a leading one or not. You can't tell without knowing your class of service AND where you live AND where you're calling AND the time of day AND the day of week. I had to code all this into a ham radio repeater's microprocessor. Anyone who cares about the specific towns can just look in the phone book and/or call the business office. Bob Clements, K1BC clements@bbn.com