TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (12/13/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Monday, 13 December 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 137
Today's Topics:
Billing Errors And Usage Sensitive Billing
Directory Assistance After Divestiture
Toll Stations - Calling Non-Dialable Locations
V & H Coord. Tape Trivia - Tie-In With Geography
Query - Calling Barnegat, NJ.
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Date: Thu Dec 2 1982 15:16:14 PST
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@LBL-UNIX>
Subject: Billing errors and Usage Sensitive Billing
The recent article about inaccurate billing by the German P.O. reminds
me of an important local issue: General Telephone of California has
filed (at the PUC's *request*) a plan for the implementation of usage
sensitive billing for all local calls. I believe that the plan calls
for a phase-in of the plan starting sometime in '84 (it would have to
be phased-in since General could not handle such billing except in
their EAX offices). A similar filing by PacTel is expected shortly.
As usual, the typical statements about how "fair" it is to charge for
"local" calls have accompanied the proposal. I won't repeat the many
arguments regarding this issue that have aired in this digest in the
past.
In any case, since the telcos have no intention of regularly providing
itemized billing detail for local calls, it seems to me that we're
opening up a whole new area of possible billing errors. Who can
really keep track of how many total minutes of local calls they
actually made? And think of all the bad connections, wrong numbers,
and similar events that you ignore now but that you'd be getting
*charged* for under a usage sensitive plan...
I doubt if any sort of "limit" on the maximum local charges is being
proposed for the California plan.
I have grave doubts about how successfully this plan can be fought
here in California, and you can be sure that the rest of the country
will follow quickly if the plan is implemented here.
Offhand, I can only see three ways to "deal" with such proposals
(assuming you are not a fan of usage sensitive billing on local
calls):
1) Fight the proposal at the PUC. (Always a thrill. I've spoken at
informal PUC hearings in the past; they're always a whole bunch
of fun. Sigh.)
2) Make sure that your telephone service is provided by older Step by
Step offices that are *not* scheduled for early cutover to ESS/EAX.
This might buy you a year or two extra of flat rate service.
3) Start planning now for local full-duplex radio networks. These
could be used for both voice communications and for data
communications by remote terminal users. Note that the currently
existing ham "packet radio" plans would not seem to be suitable for
many online data tasks, since the packet plans are essentially
half-duplex message switching mechanisms. Still, they might
provide a starting point for further development.
All in all, not very encouraging.
--Lauren--
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Date: 9 December 1982 09:26-EST
From: Jeffrey Krauss <KRAUSS at MIT-MC>
Subject: Directory Assistance after Divestiture
There is really no specially-identified service as "long distance
directory assistance." DA is a service of the local telephone company
that is provided to any requesting caller, regardless of his/her
location. Compensation does depend upon many factors, however. For
calls made over AT&T Long Lines, compensation comes either through
Settlements (for Independents) or Division of Revenues (for BOCs).
For calls made over MCI or SP, compensation to the local telephone
company comes through ENFIA, COATS or whatever the access charge is
called. Compensation is on a statistical average basis, rather than
for each DA inquiry individually. In the future, the local telcos
will be compensated by whatever access charge plan the FCC adopts.
This would be true even if there were no divestiture of BOCs. The
actual operation of a DA service is typically based on local agreement
between Bell and Independent telcos.
---Jeff Krauss---
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Date: 9-Dec-82 20:51:22 PST (Thursday)
From: Hamilton.es at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Toll Stations
To: John Covert <RSX-DEV @ DEC-MARLBORO>
Could you explain some of the black magic behind calling a Toll
Station? If I want to call Deep Springs #2 out of Bishop, California,
I (or some sort of information operator) has to tell the operator
something like "numbers: mark 887 225 routing: 619+054+181". This
gets her to the Bishop operator, who knows how to ring one long, three
short, so that the right toll station will answer. 619 is the area
code, but what does the other stuff mean? And how come I can't dial
the Bishop operator directly? There are some parts of the country
where it's hard to convince an operator that such places as Deep
Springs exist.
--Bruce
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Date: 10 Dec 1982 0419-EST
From: John R. Covert <RSX-DEV at DEC-MARLBORO>
To: Hamilton.es at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: Toll Stations
The "Mark" is a fake first six digits which points into the Rate&Route
database in order to pull up a Vertical and Horizontal coordinate so
you can be charged the appropriate rate for Deep Springs #2. For toll
stations the Mark usually begins with 8xx. For real towns, like
Bryant Pond, the mark is the NPA+NXX which will eventually be assigned
to that exchange when it becomes dialable.
The routing is what your operator has to dial in order to get you
connected to the appropriate operator to handle the call. You are not
permitted to dial the Bishop operator directly because the billing has
to be done locally. The Bishop operator would not be able to know
where you are calling from.
Just the other night I was discussing with some people why something
isn't done to make "everywhere" dialable. For example, Deep Springs
#2 could be assigned a dialable NPA-NXX-xxxx, which would somehow
directly ring the toll station (even if some weird ringing arrangement
were required). The answer is simply that as long as it is either
cheaper to handle the call manually than to build hardware to handle
it automatically or still physically impossible to, the phone company
has no reason to go to great lengths to eliminate operator handling.
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Date: 8 Dec 82 11:17:52-EST (Wed)
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@BRL>
cc: cmoore at BRL
Subject: tie-in with geography
The following are presented in ascending order of precision
(descending order of size of land area), with example from Newark,
Del. shown in parentheses: telephone area code (302)
1st 3 digits of zipcode (197)
telephone prefix (731)
5-digit zipcode (19711)
9-digit zipcode (don't know)
The pattern in rural areas is that each major town and the surrounding
area have only one phone prefix.
The larger the city, the more likely it is to have distinction between
city & suburban exchanges. E.g.: If you're on 215-835 & 839,
Bala-Cynwyd (Phila. rates), you do NOT get Phila. police by calling
911.
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Date: 9 Dec 82 14:14:59-EST (Thu)
From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@BRL>
cc: cmoore at BRL
Subject: Where to find...
A while ago, I wrote of wanting calling instructions for Barnegat, NJ.
I have not been able to obtain them. Any hints?
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End of TELECOM Digest
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