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From: la063249@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Southwestern Bell Humor (My Phone Bill)
Message-ID: <10643@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 7 Aug 90 18:30:11 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 553, Message 7 of 11


In article <10510@accuvax.nwu.edu> blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake
Farenthold) writes:

 ...stuff about Ringmaster deleted.

I wonder how many Ringmaster numbers exist now?  I think that the
LEC's are pushing it as their cables are approaching full usage.
otherwise they would be pushing a second line.  (New NPA's will be
come more frequent because of RingMaster type numbers..)

>AT&T/SWBell bill tell me how much EACH Reach Out America costs instead
>of giving me the FULL AT&T rate with asterisks, percent signs, and
>octothorpes to indicate it is a ROA call.

I think the LEC's should include two prices for each call the cost under
the plan and the regular cost.  Then they could say at the bottom that
you saved $xx.xx this month.  They could do this for each customer if
they were on a plan or not.


Bill


[Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell (when billing for AT&T Reach Out)
shows the regular cost of the call with the # symbol and the number of
minutes. At the bottom of the bill, they tally the total minutes,
charge the hourly rate for ROA and add the note "Total Was: xxxx" You
Pay: zzzz". Obviously if there is more than about $7 difference, then
you have paid the monthly Reach Out fee and started to save money. The
catch is, here in the midwest, very few late night calls cost more
than about 12 cents a minute anyway ... and some cost less!  My use of
ROA about breaks even. It becomes cost effective on calls from the
east to west coast, or anywhere more than about 2000 miles away. I do
not call the west coast all that often.  PT]