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From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Equal Access?
Message-ID: <9857@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 17 Jul 90 06:55:29 GMT
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Reply-To: Randal Schwartz <merlyn@iwarp.intel.com>
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 495, Message 1 of 10


In article <9780@accuvax.nwu.edu>, CAPEK%YKTVMX writes:

| I was visiting friends in Queens, New York recently who have elected
| RCI (Rochester Communications, I think) as their default long distance
| carrier.  I tried to make an AT&T credit card call from their phone
| (718-544) and repeatedly got the NY Tel operator, who was always happy
| to connect me with AT&T, but never able to explain why, as soon as I
| dialed 10 (on the way to 10288), I was diverted.  Supervisors were no
| better; in fact, they argued harder that what I wanted made no sense.
| I gave up and reported the line to repair as being broken.  Was it, or
| is there a legitimate state of "partial equal access", where RCI could
| be the default carrier (I confirmed this via 700-555-4141), and AT&T
| would not be easily available?

Hey, we've had it that way for quite a while.  Out here in the
backwaters of GTE land, I can select among 4 (count'em! :-) LD
carriers.  But once I've locked in the choice, no variant of 10nnn
will get me out of it.  Yeah, I can go 1-800-877-8000 or 950-1022 to
get to use me FON-card, but there's no alternative for AT&T.

As an aside, does AT&T realize how much revenue they lose by not
having a dialable number?  Sheesh.  The only reason I *have* a
FON-card is to get at *some* LD company inside a hotel or behind the
company's PBX.

So, for my home phone, I pick AT&T, because I'm afraid of that one day
when Sprint wouldn't have been able to handle the call (capacity, some
international restriction, or whatever), and I'd be stuck without an
alternate.  (Somehow, I always see AT&T as having excess capacity...
maybe I'm wrong.)


Just another AT&T chooser,

| Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095===========|
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |