CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU (Werner Uhrig) (04/19/87)
[ from the Daily Texan, April 14, 1987 ] BELL ENDS AREA MARKETING PROGRAM (by Keefe Borden, Daily Texan Staff) Southwestern Bell Telephone ended a two-year marketing program Sunday designed to evaluate the marketability of several telephone features. Jim Goodwin, public relations manager for SWB, said Monday "customer response has been good" to the program, entitled "Custom Calling Services Plus." Although Bell received a few complaints, "there was no strong customer reaction" to the decision to end the program, Goodwin said. The services included automatic re-call, distinctive ringing, selective call rejection, selective call forwarding and customer-originated trace, Goodwin said. SWB officials chose the Austin area for the market-testing program the local company has the type of equipment needed for the test, Goodwin said. The test began in January 1985 and was planned for two years. The program was extended into April to evaluate the effictiveness of an advertising campaign started in fall 1986, Goodwin said. Generally, telephone numbers beginning with four or eight, about 200,000 of the 370,000 lines in the Austin area, had access to the services. About 30,000 customers used at least one of the services each month, Goodwin said. He said SWB will not reintroduce the services in the Austin area in the near future. Selective call rejection allowed customers to avoid unwanted phone calls and cost 25 cents for each use. Customer-originated trace recorded the number of the caller, the date and the time of a call. Customers had to contact Bell officials to have the information released to police. The cost of tracing a call was $5. The distinctive ringing service, which cost 25 cents per use, allowed customers to assign identifiable rings for up to three numbers. Selective call-forwarding allowed customer to forward calls from a maximum of three different numbers to a second number. Other calls would not be forwarded. That service cost 10 cents for each use. [ instead of passing on the advantages that new technology brings to the consumers, they want to milk the customer all they can. As long as local service is left as a monopoly, the Baby-Bells will continue in the tradition of Mama, it seems. Would anyone care to discuss the possibilities and problems of demonopolizing local service? I certainly think it's needed and possible. Please don't misunderstand - I will praise the achievements and benefits of the US-phone system anyday. my metha is "take the best and improve on it; ignore the mediocre and eliminate the bad". Unfortunately, as most of us seem to agree, the breakup was done in a manner which cannot be considered as an improvement by anyone but the consumer. ---Werner ] -------