Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (01/24/84)
TELECOM Digest Monday, 23 Jan 1984 Volume 4 : Issue 12
Today's Topics:
V&H and MCI and Credit Cards
Re: 10 rings
number of rings
AT&T Cards, Operating Company Cards, Divestiture, and Marketing Strategy
MIT Research Program on Communications Policy
Quality
odds & ends
Canadian territories
AT&T Credit Card
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Date: Sun 22 Jan 84 16:53:30-EST
From: Charles B. Weinstock <Weinstock%TARTAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>
Subject: V&H and MCI and Credit Cards
What exactly is a V&H tape? What is it used for? Why might I want
it?
My company uses MCI for virtually all of its long distance calling. I
put the service in place and get several complaints a month about
quality...but people keep using it because it is mostly just as good
as Bell for vocal. MCI just tried to sell us an MCI Wats line. They
claimed that they could save us $46 a month (over current MCI rates)
by installing the single line. (Of course the savings go away almost
totally when one considers that two or more people can't make
simultaneous calls over the wats line.)
Bell of Pennsylvania (a Bell Atlantic subsidiary) just sent my company
its renewal credit cards. They were not the fancy AT&T ones
described. In fact they don't even mention AT&T, just Bell of PA.
They are the same old cardboard that they always were without a
magnetic stripe. The only difference is that they send the PIN to you
on the piece of cardboard from which the card is detached...it doesn't
appear on the card.
Chuck Weinstock
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Date: 22 Jan 84 16:34:31 PST (Sunday)
Subject: Re: 10 rings
From: Bruce Hamilton <Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA>
Reply-to: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
It seems like it would be really trivial in electronic exchanges to
always save the last number that had RUNG each phone, so that if you
were tied up and missed a call, you go simply go to your phone and,
say, hit *5 to call back the person who tried to call you. I'm amazed
that I've never seen such a feature advertised, either in a public
exchange or, say, in a Dimension PBX. (It would be especially handy
in the PBX case where most people have their phone forward after only
3 rings.)
--Bruce
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Date: Sun, 22-Jan-84 20:16:12-PST
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX>
Subject: number of rings
I've never encountered an operator who wouldn't let a line ring longer
than seven rings on request. If you ever run across such a person,
try get their operator number and speak to their supervisor, or call
the business office (be sure to note the time of the call) and report
the situation that way. Unfortunately, some operators will drop your
call instantly when you ask for their number -- so it's best to try
remember it if they gave it when they answered...
--Lauren--
------------------------------
Date: 22-Jan-1984 1633
From: (John Covert) <decwrl!rhea!castor!covert@su-shasta>
Subject: AT&T Cards, Operating Company Cards, Divestiture, and
Subject: Marketing Strategy
Someone asked me yesterday why AT&T had issued the new AT&T cards.
Here is my reply: (N.E.T. is New England Telephone)
The database that validates calling cards (regardless of who issues
them, AT&T, A local Bell company, a General Tel or other Independent
operating company) was attached to the part of the network that went
to AT&T.
It makes sense for N.E.T. to establish a contract to access this
database from AT&T just like GTE has always done for their customers
in places like Tampa.
At first glance there is no real reason for AT&T to issue their own
card to N.E.T customers; the local operating companies always issued
them in the past whether they were Bell operating companies or
independents.
There always was an interchange for the cards among all operating
companies; your N.E.T card was always good for a call from Tampa to
St. Pete even though GTE handled the call (GTE always handled all long
distance within the 813 area code even before the split -- and there
was enough traffic that typical Automatic Electric exchanges wouldn't
handle it so they bought from Western Electric!!)
Likewise the new card can be used for calls within a LATA, by the
existence of the same agreements.
So you could have just one card, and it would still be
interchangeable.
HOWEVER ---- AT&T is issuing their own card, for at least two reasons:
1. Technical Reason -- the AT&T Card Caller accepts the AT&T
card (or an American Express card -- fantastic advantage
for foreigners in this country!) and reads the mag stripe.
So AT&T had to issue the card.
(One might ask -- what about calls within a LATA placed
from Card Caller phones? Why not? AT&T may be just long
distance, but that means they are ONLY restricted from
providing local dial-tone. The real restriction is on
the local operating companies to not provide service
outside the LATA. The long distance companies can still
provide service within a LATA. How they do it, with their
own network with many access points or just by buying the
service from the local company doesn't matter.)
2. Marketing Reason -- (this is my opinion, not based on any
inside knowledge, just looking at the market) -- AT&T wants
to impress upon people that they are the best long distance
company. Putting the AT&T Card into everyone's hands will
remind the public that AT&T is still there, still strong,
and still convenient to use.
It also allowed them to write a letter to everyone saying
"No, you won't get an extra bill if you use the AT&T card;
we've made agreements with your local operating company to
place the charges on a separate page in the bill you'll
have to pay anyway."
There is no reason the other Long Distance companies can't use the
same marketing techniques, can't issue accounts to everyone that wants
one, or even send out cards unsolicited where the accounts only become
active on use; gas companies have done that for years. And there's no
reason they can't get billing agreements with local operating
companies.
The Divestiture means that the Long Distance companies are all equal
now. Competition can occur on a fair basis. Let the best company get
the most customers. AT&T still handles around 98% of all long
distance (the other companies are a drop in the bucket). AT&T intends
to compete and to retain the market share they have.
And AT&T may be able to agressively price services to win back some of
that 2% of the market they've lost. Do they need to if they have only
lost 2%? Do they want to? Will they get themselves into more
anti-trust trouble if they try too hard? Only time will tell.
------------------------------
Date: 23 January 1984 07:39 est
From: Kahin.ComForum at MIT-MULTICS
Subject: MIT Research Program on Communications Policy
Here follows the schedule for the RPCP spring seminar series:
January 25 Planning for the Space WARC
(in room E25-117)
February 9 Deregulation of Cable
February 23 Transport Protocol Standards
March 8 New Developments in Europe
March 22 Effect of Reproduction Technologies
on Intellectual Property
April 5 Central Services Organization
(of the Bell Operating Companies)
April 19 Videotex: Strategies for Startup
May 3 New Directions in Educational
Television
Except for the seminar on January 25, all seminars are
scheduled to be held in the Marlar Lounge, 37-252,
70 Vassar St. in Cambridge.
------------------------------
Subject: Quality
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 84 09:59:04 EST
From: Nathaniel Mishkin <Mishkin@YALE.ARPA>
Speaking of quality, my experience is that ATT is not always so hot
either. I'm referring to (what I'll call for lack of a better name)
"half-duplex" connections -- the kind where if both parties in the
conversation talk at the same time you end up with the verbal
equivalent of typing out a binary file on your terminal.
I don't know how widespread this kind of connection is. I know at
least some of the alternative LD services use it all the time (of
course they could be using ATT circuits). Presumably it saves money
for the LD carrier -- why allocate capacity for the silent end of the
conversation? But I think it's a real loss -- one misplaced long "uh
huh" or "yeah" and the line gets "turned around" and words get
chopped.
Anyway, it would be nice to believe that our new competitive market
will have a niche for carriers who are willing to provide full-duplex
connections (at a higher price, of course). I'm not counting on it
though.
If anyone has the technical details behind the phenomenon, I'd enjoy
hearing them.
-- Nat
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Date: Mon, 23 Jan 84 10:45:36 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@brl-vld>
Subject: odds & ends
Price of V&H tape has gone to $449 from $50?!? I'd be interested in
seeing the letter explaining this new stuff about V&H tape. I ordered
it further back (June 1982) and am still editing my own notes, dating
as far back as summer 1976, to conform to it although we have had 3
new area codes (and another coming in NYC in June) since June 1982. I
ran out of phone books to look thru in Phila. and Wilmington (Del.),
and had to use many non-phone-company sources to continue to fill in
my notes. (Problem with looking at phone bills is that mine get ex-
pensive and others' raise the question of their privacy.) So when I
edit my notes to conform to V&H tape, I have to filter out noise such
as neighboring place names, messed up digits, etc.
Speaking of NYC: I looked up 1984 Staten Island & Manhattan phone
books a few days ago. They use the same message-unit zone numbers
within NYC as before, but now split NYC between 2 tables in
anticipation of 212/718 split. I vaguely recall from MANY years back
(before N0X and N1X there) that from Manhattan you dialed 411 to get
dir.asst. for Manhattan & Bronx, and 555-1212 for S.I., Brooklyn &
Queens. A problem in the 1984 S.I. call guide: calling instructions
(which anticipate 212/718 split) are those for Manhattan & Bronx,
which remain in 212. (Also, I saw "area code" prefixes in SI for 1st
time: 317 and 816.)
As for number of rings: My mother suggested 10 many years ago. I
still allow 10.
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Date: Mon, 23 Jan 84 13:22:43 EST
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@brl-vld>
Subject: Canadian territories
My Wilmington (Del.) directory lists Yukon in area 403 and Northwest
Territories in area 604. This conflicts with my V&H tape, which did
have the latter in 403, too. Was this a change or just an error?
------------------------------
Date: 23 Jan 1984 2322-PST
From: Jon Solomon <JSol@USC-ECLC>
Subject: AT&T Credit Card
I just got mine, shiny and new. The same number as my New England
Telephone credit card. There were some questions yet unanswered by the
literature.
1) Is my New England telephone card no longer valid? (obvious
question, since the numbers were the same). The answer was no.
2) When should I use my AT&T card and when should I use my New England
card (same thing). Answer was: New England telephone will get my
intra-LATA calls, but not my inter-LATA. Those are AT&T's. Inter-LADA
calls will appear on the AT&T section of my phone bill.
3) Here's the one they couldn't answer. If I'm in Wyoming, making an
intra-LADA call (presumably to someone else in Wyoming), will New
England telephone bill me or will AT&T?
It really doesn't matter NOW, but what of the future, when the LOC's
no longer act as billing agents for AT&T?
Yet another random divestiture question comes to mind: You have to pay
all of your bill, *including* or *excluding* the AT&T charges to keep
your line from being disconnected. Perhaps another call to the RSC
will help...
Cheers,
--JSol
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End of TELECOM Digest
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