Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: russ%prism@gatech.edu (Russell Shackelford) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Will This Work and is it Legal? Message-ID: Date: 7 Jul 89 06:06:26 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 41 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 226, message 2 of 11 Scenario: exchange "b" that has local calls to exchanges "a" and "c". Calls between "a" and "c" are toll calls. 1. If I get a phone line in b, can I use call forwarding to transfer calls originating in a to my number in c. 2. If so, can I use a little box like the one sold by Hello Direct that allows user to change the call-forwarding destination number from another phone to achieve the following: I am in exchange "c"; I make local call to my other line in exchange "b" and program the call forwarding to my intended destination in exchange "a". I then call the number in "b" a second time and reach the number in "a" from ny phone in "c" without a toll call. 3. Is there an easier way to accomplish this? Thanks. -- Russell Shackelford School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332 russ@prism.gatech.edu (404) 834-4759 [Moderator's Note: We have covered this territory before. Yes, you can do what you are suggesting. It is marginally legal, or within the tariff. Telco will advise you that is not what they had in mind when call forwarding was offered. And yes, there is an easier *and cheaper* way: Dial direct! It is very rare that the cost of two or three local calls strung together turn out to be less expensive than a single call to the place you are calling. If you have unmeasured local service in your community and in surrounding areas, you *might* be able to save money -- if not time and bother in dialing -- by stringing local points together. But if you have measured local service, as most of us do these days, you are kidding no one but yourself thinking that two or three measured, timed local calls will cost less in the end than the cost of the toll call itself. Besides which, you have to amortize the cost of the device you purchased. And after you have programmed it to forward the line, how do you regain control of the device itself on subsequent calls without going to the physical location and resetting it? PT]