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: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Why DA Costs Should Be Spread Among All Subscribers Message-ID: Date: 9 Sep 89 18:55:34 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 38 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 5 of 8 In article , bzs@cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein) writes: > Call me a naive (and cynical) fool, but I always thought the reason > TPC had free DA was to encourage you to use the phone system (usages > which they *did* charge for.) Not knowing you, I won't call you a fool, but I was certainly unaware that telcos (pre-breakup) used DA as a promotion tool. It was (and is) an essential service to facilitate the use of the telephone. > I suppose given that the telephone companies have gone completely > broke over this lost leader and have to send their top execs out on > the streets to beg lunch money we'd better change everything. Not only This is not clear. Currently, DA is charged for. Do you mean make it free again? DA has costs associated with it just as every service does. With all of the different service entities now in the telephone business, the question is who provides DA and who pays for it. If AT&T maintains a DA bureau and you call it to get aunt Millie's number, then make the call on Sprint, what on earth did AT&T get out of the transaction? If you make a DA call for every pay call you make and I don't, why should I subsidize you? > Does anyone in this discussion honestly believe they are talking about > anything more important than marketing schemes? Are the folks making > feeble noises about "justice" or "morality" in regards to DA charging > actually serious? Hello...hello...anybody home? Recovering costs of operation from users is not necessarily "justice" or "moral", it's just good business. If you have some legitimate question, such as, "Is the amount charged for DA actually commenserate with the costs in providing the service?", then let's talk. Otherwise, you are going to have to accuse every business that charges for its products of being guilty of conducting "marketing schemes". -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !