WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin) (10/01/87)
Does anyone know how the telcos now justify their charges for "unlisting" now that they also charge for Directory Assistance? If anyone out there has access to the data presented to their state's Public Service (or Public Utilities, or whatever) Commission, I'd be interested to hear just what argument a local telco now gives for charging customers to NOT be listed in their various directories or number-giving services. It was my understanding that, in past years, these charges were justified by an increased load on Information or Directory Assistance, which was then free; you were charged some fee for an unlisted number because people couldn't find you in the directory and called Information, who then expended resources to discover that you were unlisted and told the caller that. This cost the telco some money, of course, so they charged the person who was not listed to make up for it. Annoying but logical. Now, though, the situation is changed. The telcos make money from calls to Information/Diretory Assistance! They charge for most (or all) of such calls, so they should be happy to have vast numbers of "unlisted" subscribers generating extra revenue via fruitless Information calls. So how do they NOW justify charging subscribers to be "unlisted"? I'd like to know what creative excuses they've dreamed up... Regards, Will Martin "wmartin@almsa-1.arpa" -------
trt@rti.UUCP (Thomas Truscott) (10/07/87)
In article <12339029180.10.WMARTIN@SIMTEL20.ARPA>, WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin) writes: > Does anyone know how the telcos now justify their charges for "unlisting" > now that they also charge for Directory Assistance? ... I can not answer this question, although "special processing" and "loss of information => reduced value of phonebook" comes to mind. The indirect question I *can* answer is "how can one avoid this extra charge?" The answer is: list the number in someone else's name, just have it billed to you. Parents do this for their kids, you can do it for your pet cat. At home we have a second phone line for a modem. Our friends would call it by mistake until we changed its listing to: Unix, Guru 3916 Brixton Ln ........ 489-6289 The modem does not answer, so we don't worry about prank calls. The telephone service person laughed and laughed, but sent it through. Tom Truscott P.S. Out of paranoia, I never say "modem" when talking to the telco.
howeird@well.UUCP (Howard Stateman) (10/10/87)
The phone companies charge for EVERYTHING which is not expressly prohibited. When they started giving my BBS number out as if it were my regular home phone (even though I had asked for the number to be listed as "children's phone), I called up and put it in my cat's name.
LENOIL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (10/23/87)
>Now, though, the situation is changed. The telcos make money from calls >to Information/Diretory Assistance! They charge for most (or all) of such >calls, so they should be happy to have vast numbers of "unlisted" >subscribers generating extra revenue via fruitless Information calls. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that you are not charged for directory assistance if the number you seek is unlisted. Therefore, the old telco justification for charging subscribers for being unlisted still stands. However, if you want a good example of a service that we shouldn't be charged extra for, try touch tone on for size. Touch tone calls are dialed faster, and therefore take up less of the central office's processing time. Perhaps back in the Stroger or crossbar days it made sense to charge extra to cover the cost of installing touch tone dialing equipment, but for ESS offices, people should really pay extra for *pulse*. This would have the additional benefit of hastening the demise of antiquated pulse equipment. Robert LenoiSt
WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin) (10/23/87)
This probably varies from BOC to BOC, but it is my current understanding that there is no difference in directory assistance/information charges regardless of the status of the inquired-about number. I, too, when they first started charging for this, expected that "frivolous" or unjustified DA calls would be charged for, but those inquiring about new (not yet in the printed listing) or unlisted numbers woud not be charged for. This would be logical and sensible, and could have been easily implemented by giving the DA operators a key to hit that would indicate to the billing equipment whether the call in progress should be free or charged-for. (I would expect the former, as "free" would be the exceptional case, while most calls would cost.) Of course, this wasn't done. I agree with you that Touch-Tone extra charges are unjustified. I don't agree that pulse should be charged for, since it was the telco's decision to use that equipment originally, and their decision to implement tone dialling. All this was done for their own benefit by themselves, so the customers shouldn't pay more for any of it. Regards, Will Martin -------