Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!usc!rutgers!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: clements@bbn.com (Bob Clements) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Why DA Costs Should Be Spread Among All Subscribers Message-ID: Date: 9 Sep 89 15:34:31 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Bob Clements Lines: 52 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 362, message 3 of 8 In article bzs@cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein) writes: > ... >Does anyone in this discussion honestly believe they are talking about >anything more important than marketing schemes? > ... > -Barry Shein Well, I haven't been in this discussion yet, but ... based on last year's battle in Massachusetts, I believe there are some real serious abusers of Directory Assistance out there. Massachusetts has a legislature which seems to believe that _anything_ TELCO wants is illegal, immoral, fattening and a ripoff of the public. We still have free DA and ten cent pay phones (the ones belonging to TELCO only, of course, not the COCOTs). TELCO asked the DPU for permission to charge for DA calls. The legislature got into the act and started screaming about TELCO trying to abridge the right of free speech (!?!) and ripping off the public and all the more legitimate objections, too. I watched some of it on the tube. Absolutely amazing. But TELCO kept backing off their position to the point that no reasonable person could have objected and still wanted the permission (and didn't get it). They were willing to allow exemption for anyone who claimed a handicap, even with no supporting evidence. They were willing to exempt pay phones. They were willing to exempt new listings and calls FROM new listings. They promised to provide huge supplies of phone books. They were (reluctantly) willing to exempt not just two calls a month but twenty-five calls per month! And still they said their figures showed there were many (ab)users of the system who went far above that level. (They claimed privacy laws prevented them from naming those (ab)users.) This says to me that there are mass users of DA who are using DA as an extension of their business and not paying for it. I can't see any reason not to have them pay their way. Having said all that, I hereby propose a simple technical solution to the problem: Stop making the DA service so good. Impose a two-minute holding period before giving out the number. (Maybe except from pay phones). That's long enough to encourage people to look it up in the book. It probably would get the bulk abusers to implement their own systems with CD-ROMs. Today's service is so good it is actually faster than looking in the book a lot of the time. But a two minute wait is not too oppressive for the occasional legitimate need to find a number that isn't in the book or the occasion when you don't have a book to look in. Bob Clements, K1BC, clements@bbn.com