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From: ben@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com (Benjamin Ellsworth)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Billing and Answer Supervision
Message-ID: <5195@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 90 03:43:41 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 175, Message 3 of 9


> 	Why is it that people are perfectly happy to get non-itemized
> bills from other utilities but not from the phone company?

Well actually I am not perfectly happy, *but* unlike the telephone, I
can go out and get daily readings off of my meters if I want to.  I
have access to exactly the same data that is going to go into the
billing system.  If things start getting weird, I can experiment and
watch the effects in "real time" on my account balance.

Given this level of control and information.  I can discover how my
use habits affect my cost and make intelligent decisions on how to
change my use patterns.  If all I got was a single bill, I wouldn't be
able to tell if I was making too many calls to grandma or too many
calls to my brother.

> It's certainly not because of the amount of money involved.  The 
> average person's average phone bill is probably a lot higher than 
> their water bill, about the same as their electric bill, and a lot 
> lower than their gas bill (assuming they heat with gas).  

We may not be average, but at our house the phone bill is almost the
highest in the "utility" category.  It's really not very high (in the
$60 range), but our other bills are lower.


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