black%ll-micro@ll-vlsi.arpa (Jerry Glomph Black) (01/26/89)
The USA Direct service doesn't save you money, but it does have advantages. I spent Sept-Nov last year in Australia, and used it frequently. Besides bypassing the hassle of dealing with foreign operators and byzantine phone systems (if you have MOUNTAINS of oversized Aussie coins, you theoretically could dial direct, at prices very similar to USA Direct). The idea of phone credit cards is not widespread. They had a few (10 in the whole country!) special phones at airports that could charge onto your VISA card, I wish these had been more widely available. But I digress. The main advantage of USA Direct was to pre-screen the overseas line quality. You called 0014-xxwhatever, and were rapidly connected to an AT&T operator over either a very good cable line (75% chance), or a really crappy satellite link with echoes, maddening delays, etc. Clearly, you hang up & try again in the latter circumstance, the experience costing nothing but the time to redial the toll-free number.
gast@CS.UCLA.EDU (David Gast) (01/27/89)
> ...In November, AT&T announcd the addition of three new countries to its > USADIRECT service. Now you can dial an access number from 51 countries > to directly reach an AT&T operator in the US. In some countries you can > dial from any residential, business, or public telephone. In others you > must use a dedicated telephone located in hotels, airports and seaports. > And you can use your AT&T card or make a collect call. There's no extra > charge for the service. For more information, call (800) 874-4000." > ***End of item*** > [Comments: I called the 800 number given and asked a couple questions. > The man at the other end said that "no extra charge" in the above means > that, though this service bypasses the foreign country's overseas > operators, you are billed at the regular overseas-call rate for your > call. It just saves you time and hassle to do it this way. They don't > split the call charge into separate overseas-to-US and internal-US > segments, charging separately for each, which is what I had first > envisioned.] Note: I also called several different times and got several different stories from your beloved AT&T. One time I was told that the calls had to be made from special phones; another time I was given a number to dial; another time, the person did not know what I was talking about. USADIRECT? What's that. For the country I inquired about, it is the same price every minute of every day. That rate is fairly reasonable too (except for the fact that there is no reason that there should not be off peak use discounts) and the mandatory operator assisted charges. By fairly reasonable, I mean it costs less than the other country charges for an *operated assisted* call. Based on the above information, I would say that the 'no extra charge' is just marketing hype. They set the rates and then they say there is no *EXTRA* charge. The charges are definitely not the same from X to USA as from the USA to X, even if both are operated assisted. I also fail to see how using USADIRECT saves time or hassle. If you have to go to a special phone, it almost certainly does neither. It might save money, but it might not. From the above country X, it is possible to use a pre-paid phone card or coins at many phones to call the U.S. at direct dial rates. Depending on how long you talk, it may be cheaper than USADIRECT. (By the way, the cards are available every- where, the foreign language name is phonecard, and the largest coin is worth about $4.00, so it is not as if you have to have a stack of dimes available although the marginal incremental cost is about one dime.) The commercials for the service are hogwash as well. I have never tried to make an international call where the operator did not speak English. In many countries they start speaking in English. Perhaps they figure that since AT&T's operators do not speak German or Japanese, foreign countries' operators do not speak English. I suspect that the rules, prices, etc differ from country to country, but I don't have any proof since I only inquired about one country. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast
johnl@ima.ISC.COM (01/30/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0033m02@vector.UUCP> gast@CS.UCLA.EDU (David Gast) writes: >I also fail to see how using USADIRECT saves time or hassle. If you >have to go to a special phone, it almost certainly does neither. It >might save money, but it might not. From the above country X, it is >possible to use a pre-paid phone card or coins at many phones to call >the U.S. at direct dial rates. Depending on how long you talk, it may >be cheaper than USADIRECT. ... I guess you've never tried to make a credit card call from Country X (which, for the purposes of argument, we'll call France.) You pick up the phone, then you dial 19-3311 to make an operated assisted call to North America. (This is in the phone book, but if you have trouble reading French or your hotel room doesn't have that volume of the phone book, that might not be much help.) An operator answers, and you explain what you want, in French, repeating everything about three times if you have an American accent like mine. Fine, they say, we'll call you back. Wait about 1/2 hour. They call you back, then your call is completed. With USA Direct, I dial 19-0011 from any phone and three seconds later a voice says "AT&T, may I help you." You can indeed use a phone card, but the standard 40 unit phone card is only enough for about three minutes and I don't believe you have the opportunity to stick in a fresh card when the old one runs out. You can use 10 franc coins, but the phones don't make change* so if your call costs 11 francs you lose the other nine. It's true that calling card calls from France aren't discounted by time of day (a holdover from the bad old days, these days in France you get the evening rate even from noon to 1PM because everyone's at lunch) and the direct-dial evening rate may be slightly cheaper, but USA Direct is so much easier, particularly if you're traveling on business and can get reimbursed for calls if you have a recipt, that I'll never use anything else. Regards, John Levine, johnl@ima.isc.com * - In Germany, if you use a large coin to make a cheap call, there's a button on the phone you can push, put in the actual amount the call cost, and get your large coin back. Only in Germany do they expect people to understand that.
rja@edison.ge.com (rja) (01/30/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0033m02@vector.UUCP>, gast@CS.UCLA.EDU (David Gast) writes: [ stuff deleted here for bandwidth ] > For the country I inquired about, it is the same price every minute > of every day. That rate is fairly reasonable too (except for the > fact that there is no reason that there should not be off peak use > discounts) and the mandatory operator assisted charges. > [ more stuff deleted here] > > Based on the above information, I would say that the 'no extra > charge' is just marketing hype. They set the rates and then > they say there is no *EXTRA* charge. The charges are definitely > not the same from X to USA as from the USA to X, even if both > are operated assisted. > For USA Direct calls placed from Hong Kong, the call is billed at the US rate meaning the same cost as if the call had been placed from the receiving US number, including any time-of-day discounts. This can be a big savings in HK since all calls originating in HK are billed at the 'standard' rate otherwise. The HK Telco is also prone to lie and say that it is cheaper to call from HK to the US than from the US to HK. For 16 hours a day calls from the US are cheaper than calls from HK, and for the remaining 8 hours the cost is the same either way. Moreover, since HK is 12 hours away then afternoon phone calls from HK get billed at the midnight-7am night US rate if you use USA Direct -- this is great for FAXes. My experience is that it is cheaper to use USA Direct during most of the day than it is to call the US directly (whether by cash or phonecard). As an aside, the HK Telco is the least helpful of any Telco/PTT I've had to deal with anywhere in the world. I suspect that each country overseas imposes slightly different rules on AT&T so that looking into each country's situation would be advisable. ______________________________________________________________________________ rja@edison.GE.COM or ...uunet!virginia!edison!rja via Internet (preferable) via uucp (if you must) ______________________________________________________________________________
jimmy@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Jim Gottlieb) (02/04/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0033m02@vector.UUCP>, gast@CS.UCLA.EDU (David Gast) writes: > Based on the above information, I would say that the 'no extra > charge' is just marketing hype. They set the rates and then > they say there is no *EXTRA* charge. I think what they mean is that you _know_ what the rate will be. You don't have to worry about any local surcharges. > I also fail to see how using USADIRECT saves time or hassle. If you > have to go to a special phone, it almost certainly does neither. I have found it to be wonderful, especially when I did not know my AT&T International Calling Card number. If you call collect or person-to-person, you can leave a easily leave a message. Foreign operators may know phone lingo, but try conveying a message. You can use your regular Calling Card number. And, as previously mentioned, you can check the quality of connection before proceeding (this was often necessary when calling from Australia). And then, sometimes it's just nice to speak fluent English to someone (we're not talking Australia here). -- Jim G. E-Mail: <jimmy@denwa.uucp> or <jimmy@pic.ucla.edu> ^^^^^^ V-Mail: (213) 551-7702 Fax: 478-3060 The-Real-Me: 824-5454
wtho@uunet.uu.net (Tom Hofmann) (02/06/89)
Could someone post a list of (all) the countries with USA-Direct service, including access codes, conditions (duration of call, time of day etc.) on which USA-Direct is cheaper then a regular international call, and other (dis-)advantages. T. Hofmann wtho@cgch.UUCP