Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!gryphon!vector!chinacat!telecom-gateway From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Anachronistic Rip-off Message-ID: Date: 26 Nov 89 18:50:00 GMT Sender: news@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 71 Approved: telecom-request@chinacat.lonestar.org X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 532, message 1 of 10 I have been approached by a local company that offers long distance service. They are very agressive and have been in the area for some time. BizTel's sales force has been trying to convince me that their rates are substantially lower than any of the "big boys", and that my clients are losing money hand over fist every minute that they are not making calls with BizTel. The catch: Their service is entirely through FGA. When you sign up, they come out to your premesis and install magic Mitel dialers on each of your outside lines. When I found this out, I told them that there was no way I would even consider their service. End of discussion. In case you are approached by a similar operation, here's why the discussion ended: Problem #1 FGA uses ordinary dialup lines to place calls, similar to MCI in the old days. You dial a local number, get a tone, enter your authorization code, area code, and number. While the dialer does this for you, it still requires a call to a *charged* number. In this area, a local call during business hours is $.05 first minute, $.01 each additional. And remember, that's whether your call is completed or not. Every call attempt costs money, and if you have some aggressive person in your office that is frustrated by someone's busy signal, the cost could be significant. Problem #2 FGA has no answer supervision. When I confronted them with this, they claimed that their "time before answer assumption" was very generous and worked in the customer's favor. Hogwash! You should be charged for an answer and not charged otherwise. Period. Problem #3 Since they program the dialers, they have the ability, unbeknownst to the customer, to siphon off not only intralata calls, but local calls as well. Not only would you pay Pac*Bell for the local call to their switch, but they would charge you for the call as well. Do they ever do this? You bet. In talking to some of their past customers, this was the number one reason they switched to another long distance company. Problem #4 The dialers are a heap-o-trouble. I remember when my company had customers that had dialers between their switch and the CO lines, there was constant "trunk" trouble, and the long distance company always blamed the switch, even when time after time it was proved to be the dialer's fault. Avoid any long distance company that wants to install dialing equipment at your location. In 1989, it is as necessary as a separate bell box down on the wall. Tell them to take a hike. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: MCI also was installing those dialers about twelve years ago when everything of theirs went through dialups. And it was MCI's failure to calculate the cost of local calls to the dialups (or at least their failure to inform prospective customers of those charges) which led me to file a formal complaint with the FCC in 1979. MCI kept rattling about their 'big savings over AT&T' all the while large companies who opted for their service in those days were paying for thousands of (probably unnoticed) extra local units. My article in [Telephony Magazine] and my subsequent filing with the FCC forced MCI to begin advising prospects -- at least in tiny print at the bottom of the page -- of those charges. Remember, in those days we paid but one phone bill, to the local telco, and 'savings' in long distance offset by increased charges in local calling were no savings at all! PT]