[fa.telecom] TELECOM Digest V4 #1

Telecom-Request%usc-eclc@brl-bmd.UUCP (Telecom-Request@usc-eclc) (01/03/84)

TELECOM Digest            Sunday, 1 Jan 1984      Volume 4 : Issue 1

Today's Topics:
                        Extended calling services
                             LATA boundaries
                              A Few Things
                         TELECOM Digest   V3 #85
                                 Felony
                       monthly charges for wiring?
                   reporting FCC registration numbers
            General Telephone provides number identification
                   New Sprint rates: fact or fiction?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1983 06:11:52-PST
From: decwrl!rhea!donjon!goldstein@SU-Shasta
Subject: Extended calling services

(In-real-life-from: Fred Goldstein @Digital, Concord MA) Most states,
it seems, have had some sort of optional residence-only reduced toll
plan(s) for years.  The details vary widely, being cheaper than
intrastate WATS (which is very pricey) but designed to recover decent
revenue by encouraging extra off-peak toll calling.

In multi-LATA states, these plans of course cannot be offerred anymore
by the local telcos, but since they remain entirely within state 
jurisdiction, AT&T theoretically can be compelled to provide them.  
Just because there's more than one holding company involved doesn't 
mean that state regulations must be cast aside!  I suspect that within
a few months, when the dust settles, some states will give in to AT&T 
and discontinue the discounts while other states will enforce them.

FX, it seems, comes in three "mileage" flavors.  Short-haul FX to 
contiguous exchanges, common in LA, may be charged (in some states) by
the distance to the rate center boundary.  This makes sense when you 
live just over a line.  Most FX, though, is charged rate center to 
rate center; where you live within a rate center doesn't count.  (This
is easier to administer, since they don't have to argue over maps, 
etc.)  Finally, there's pseudo-FX which is charged like the latter.  
If you want FX because the interexchange network won't carry data well
enough, pseudo-FX won't help much!

Will, what state are you in (Office-3 isn't too descriptive)?  A 60 
mile run is beyond practically any optional extended-local plan, but a
residential toll discount plan (like Bay State Service in Mass., 
Dial-A-Visit in NY, Gopher State Bargain Rate in MN, etc.) may ease 
the pain.

A pretty good appendix on toll & other rates is found in "Long 
Distance For Less" by Robert Self (Telecom Library, NY).  Trouble is, 
a book like that is outdated by the time it's printed.  Even with 
periodic update sheets mailed out, they are a bit outdated before 
second class mail can deliver them!  Or so it seems (sigh...).

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 28 Dec 83 21:19:53 est
From: ulysses!smb@Berkeley (Steven Bellovin)
Subject: LATA boundaries

Does anyone know if the northern New Jersey LATA includes any part of 
New York or Nassau County?  I had assumed not, since NY and NJ are 
served by different RBOCs, but that's the way it showed up on my last 
phone bill.


                --Steve Bellovin
                201-789.....

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Dec 83 09:48:25 EST
From: Nathaniel Mishkin <Mishkin@YALE.ARPA>
Subject: A Few Things

I'm a newcomer to this list, so pardon me if this is rehashing old 
material.  If someone could point me to a piece of relevant archives, 
I'd be happy to look at that.

(1) What do people think of the so-called "access charge"?  I have
    heard several different "explanations" and rationales for it.
    Basically, the party line is that it is intended to cover (a)
    revenues that will be lost by the local companies when the
    supposed subsidy of local service by LD service (see below) goes
    away and (b) the cost of providing the hookup of your phone to the
    LD network.  Well, as for (b), it seems to me that this is what my
    local phone rate is supposed to pay -- the cost of providing local
    phone service, whether it be from my house to someone else's house
    within the local area or from my house to the local entry point
    into the LD network.

    In addition, everyone is spouting how the poor LD users have been
    subsidizing local service all these years and how everyone should
    instead pay their "fair share" based on actual use not public
    policy.  Well if that's so, why should I pay a flat rate (the
    "access charge") instead of paying two bills for each LD call: one
    to the LD company to cover the cost of the LD part of the call and
    one to the local company to cover the cost of the local call to
    the entry point into the LD network?

    If part of the access charge covers fixed costs associated with
    the local network, then that should simply be called part of the
    cost of local service and added to the fixed part of my local
    phone rate.  It seems that any other part (e.g. the non fixed cost
    of the equipment that that local company uses to connect my call
    to the LD network) should be charged based on actual usage.

    I'm not opposed to the idea that local rates should go up if the
    present rates are in fact not carrying the full cost of local
    service.  It just seems that the bureacrats and regulators could
    do a better job explaining what the situation actually is instead
    of introducing questionable terms like "access charge".  (I saw
    the head of the FCC and some congressman on TV a few weeks ago and
    all the FCC guy could blather is "you know, LD is subsidizing
    local service and the access charge is paying for your local lines
    connecting you to the LD networks" and I felt like screaming [a
    shortened version] of the above argument.)

(2) While I'm adding fuel to the fire:  it has been suggested to me
    by no one of any particular authority that the whole notion that
    LD subsidizes local service is perhaps a bit bogus.  The idea is
    that ATT can read out their presumably volumnous and complicated
    books anyway they like to show anything subsidizing anything.

(3) On a more neutral tone:  could someone explain how a "long
    distance" call within the area serviced by a single local company
    will be handled and billed?  Will the local company internally buy
    LD service from a LD carrier or do the local companies have
    sufficient internal networks for handling such calls.

                                 -- Nat

------------------------------

Date: 29 Dec 1983 14:37:42-EST
From: york@scrc-vixen
Subject: TELECOM Digest   V3 #85

I received no responses at all to my query.  We are going with a 
Toshiba Strata 12 system after all.  I'll let you know how it goes.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 29 Dec 83 09:21:48 est
From: decvax!dartvax!mss@Berkeley (Mark S. Sherman)
Subject: Felony

Please explain this felony concept to me -- I thought there was a 1st 
amendment which basically lets me say anything I want. Maybe civil 
action for aiding the theft of services, but there was no theft of 
trade secrets, no incitement to riot.
                        -Mark Sherman (Mark.Sherman@CMU-CS-A)

------------------------------

Date: Friday, 30 December 1983 20:23 est
From: Kovalcik.Multics@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (Richard Kovalcik, Jr.)
Subject: monthly charges for wiring?

Can someone explain to me the racket that New York Telephone has 
charging monthly charges for interior wiring?  Why do they get away 
with this while no one else does?  (Obviously tariffs, but how did 
they get the tariffs.)  Most of the wiring in my parents house is done
by me and they now own their own phones, yet they are still being 
charged for wiring for the two phones they reported to NYT.  In order 
to get rid of these charges the supervisor I spoke to says they have 
to send someone out at the cost of about $40 to install a new terminal
which we have to run all the wiring to.  The charges are 1.27 per 
month for wire investment recovery and .77 and .77 per month for the 
wiring for the two phone lines / jacks currently.  What happens if it 
turns out that there are really four jacks and they move the phones 
around?  Are they supposed to pay another .77 times two per month for 
that? Why do I get the feeling that they only should have bought one 
phone so that they would be saving more?  Perhaps one phone will break
and they will have to call the phone company and tell them that they 
only have one phone.

-Rick (this never happened to me in CA, PA, or MA) Kovalcik

------------------------------

Date: Friday, 30 December 1983 20:29 est
From: Kovalcik.Multics@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (Richard Kovalcik, Jr.)
Subject: reporting FCC registration numbers

Asumming I have a phone or portable direct connect terminal (like the 
TI 787 I am using now) that I move around from phone line to phone 
line (possibly in different states).  Am I supposed to report the FCC 
registration number on all the phone lines?  Since New York Telephone 
seems to charge .77 per month for each phone you own for wiring, I get
the feeling that I would have to call them on Friday to say I was 
going to hook it up over the weekend and then on Monday to tell them I
removed it.  Also, New York Telephone seems to like to check FCC 
Registration Numbers and bill people for touch tone service if the 
registration number is that of a touch tone instrument.  What do I do 
if it is a dual touch tone / rotary instrument (like the TI 787) and I
only am going to use rotary?

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 30 Dec 83 21:55:39 PST
From: Theodore N. Vail <vail@UCLA-CS>
Subject: General Telephone provides number identification

At least in the Malibu and Topanga exchanges of General Telephone, 
dialing "114" produces a recording of a woman's voice, one numeral at 
a time, of the calling number.

ted vail

------------------------------

From: sdcsvax!bob@Nosc (Robert Hofkin)
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 83 12:27:15 pst
Subject: New Sprint rates: fact or fiction?

I'm a current customer of Home Sprint.  The nice folks GTE sent me a 
glossy brochure sort of explaining the January 1 rate changes.  I 
learned only three facts -- the monthly charge is replaced by $5 
minimum usage; various discounts apply to bills over $25, $75, and 
$200; service is available at all hours.

Great.  I *STILL* want to know the AMOUNT of discounts, and the basic 
per-minute charges (are they changing?).  I called the "general 
information" people, who told me to call my sales office.  They gave 
me the wrong number, too. The San Diego sales office promised to mail 
me something (another copy of the brochure I already have?).  I tried 
the billing office; as usual, they know nothing, but suggested that I 
try again in mid-January.

It almost makes Ma Bell look worthwhile....

--Bob Hofkin (sdcsvax!bob)

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest
*********************