David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com (09/23/88)
R. Michael Gutierrez responded to Alexander Dupuy in Digest v8, #145: *When I called Sprint to inquire about service, they said that the Foncard was *available ONLY with Dial-1 (1+, or technically FGD service), and was not avail *as a "stand-alone" service. MCI (where I work) does offer stand-alone calling *cards, but you have to specifically ask for stand-alone card service. When I had two U.S. Sprint accounts, of which only one included 1+ service (I had only one telephone number, after all), Sprint issued FONCARDs on both. I checked again tonight with their customer service department (it was after hours, so I got the DFW office instead of the Chicago region office), I was assured that (1) FONCARDs most certainly ARE available on dial-up accounts [the FONCARD system is the only dial-up service they have now, so there is no other way!] but that (2) upon opening a dial-up account and again upon any request for additional FONCARDs, the customer service representative would probably ask the customer to consider switching his or her 1+ carrier to U.S. Sprint. Possibly Sprint has different rules for business and residential customers? Possibly the Sprint customer service rep misunderstood Mr. Gutierrez? *any *subsequent changes will incur a PIC charge, which ranges (for us here in *California) from $5.26 (Pacific Bell), $8.52 (Nevada Bell), $9.51 (Hawaiian *Telephone), $12.00 (Centel-Las Vegas), and $13.00 (GTE-California). In the Chicago LATA, Illinois Bell charges $5.00 (last I heard) and Centel charges $5.82, which for some reason is one of Centel's favorite prices. David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com || sun!portal!cup.portal.com!david_w_tamkin