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From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 976- and 900- Phone Numbers
Message-ID: <11370@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 25 Aug 90 04:09:02 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 597, Message 3 of 11


There have been a lot of surprisingly fundamental changes in what
phone companies do in the past few years.  One of the worst is the way
that local telcos have become bill collectors for everyone from
reputable long distance companies to AOSes that charge you $14.75 for
saying "NO" to a computerized collect call from a COCOT and 900
sleazos that charge $2/minute for your kids to hear this week's wisdom
from Elmer the Pig, not to mention the 900 number lotteries thinly
disguised as contests of skill.

In particular, it used to be the case that when you dialed a phone
number you could tell fairly easily from the number you dialed how
much the call would cost.  AOSes and 900 numbers have made a mockery
of this.  It seems to me that at the least, 900 numbers should answer
with a message along the lines of "This number is serviced by <the foo
company>.  You will be charged $2.00 per minute starting after the
third tone. ... boop ... boop ... boop" giving you a chance to hang
up.

But I suspect that the only really viable approach is to decree that
no charge on a phone bill is collectable unless there is a signed
agreement from the subscriber.  If someone chooses voluntarily to pay
a bill to a company without an agreement, OK, but as soon as you
contest it the bill is cancelled unless they can show the paper.  The
agreement doesn't have to be fancy, the card you send in asking to
switch long distance companies would be adequate.  This might make it
harder to switch long distance companies on a whim; I don't see
anything intrinsically wrong with that.

Regards,

John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!esegue!johnl