Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!decuac!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: zygot!john@apple.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: What Is Involved In Getting a 900 or 976 Number? Message-ID: Date: 21 Aug 89 18:36:35 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 30 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us > [Moderator's Note: To get a 976 number from Illinois Bell, for starters > you drop off an application for same at their office accompanied by a > Cashier's Check for $2000. Ditto for California. Your equipment must be located in the area served by the 976 prefix. Downtown LA, downtown San Diego, financial district, San Francisco, Santa Clara (Space Park), and downtown Santa Rosa are the locations that I know about for their respective area codes. You must have a minimum of 6 lines and you are charged standard rate for these lines. Pac*Bell gets a "transport charge" that is based on the length of your program, not on your rate. For a three-minute program (the maximum) the per-call transport is seventy cents. There is no minimum amount of calls you have to receive. Currently, interactive is allowed on 976, but Pac*Bell is encouraging migration to their 900 services. You are subject to "charge backs", just like Illinois. "Harmful matter" is no longer permitted on 976, and Pac*Bell is aggressively reviewing programs to make sure no one is cheating. Now that the strike is over, you can probably get connected within 2-3 weeks. That minimum on Illinois Bell sounds scary. If you get no calls at all on Pac*Bell 976, all you owe is the cost of those 6 (or however many) trunks that you have, which amounts to about $130 total. You get (on a three minute program that costs the caller $2.00) $1.30 per call, so it doesn't take much to break even. If your service allows, you can declare a shorter program and get more of your $2.00. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !