Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!decwrl!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Washington State Running Low Message-ID: <11912@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 9 Sep 90 01:44:27 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Randal Schwartz Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Lines: 46 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 631, Message 6 of 7 In article <11890@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine (John Higdon) writes: | Randal Schwartz writes: | > I cannot imagine just picking up the phone, and dialing | > some random unfamiliar seven-digit number, and having to pay long | > distance charges on it instead just because I didn't know. | Since no '1' is dialed here for any long distance, I generally keep my | random dialing to a minimum. Not only does it save me money, but saves | me time since I only talk to people with whom I wish to converse. | Also, I'm told that some (not all, but some) people object to being on | the receiving end of "random" calls. Random was the wrong word. Maybe it's because I run a business, but I'm eternally calling back some phone number left by a message. "Call Suzie at 635-2233", it says. Now, in the unfriendly system that it's about to become (hopefully not for a while), I have to look up that silly chart that tells if 635 is a local call to 643 (my home prefix), and if not, *keep* the friggin' call short. Right now, I just dial away, and let the phone company figure it out. It is *not* intuitive about what is and isn't a local call around here, by the way. There are parts of the city that are 1/4 the air mileage as the furthest free call, that end up being a toll call because of the mixture of US West, GTE, and random small telco around here. (Real example... local call from East Portland to Forest Grove, about 20 airmiles, but long distance from Beaverton to Lake Oswego, and they're adjacent, but *local* again from Beaverton to Wilsonville, which is on the *other* side of Lake Oswego.) I'd almost always be guessing wrong, unless I had dialed the prefix before. (And new prefixes are showing up every day.) I think this scam of using 1+ to indicate area codes instead of toll calls is actually good for the phone company in two ways ... they can sell more phone numbers (if it wasn't for PBX DID, we wouldn't be running out), and people can get stuck with toll calls without knowing it. A scam. Sorta like forced business measured service, which our PUC has thumbed his nose at a few times around now. (Anything the phone company asks for that is footnoted as "will save the customer money" probably won't, I suspect.) Just another phone user, 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