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From: herbison@ultra.enet.dec.com (B.J.  05-Oct-1990 1122)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: MCI Call Blocking
Message-ID: <13093@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 90 15:37:40 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 716, Message 10 of 12


On 7 September I sent in an article about MCI call blocking from
the {Boston Globe}, which was published in Volume 10 : Issue 626. 
At the end of the article I wrote:
 
> I called MCI customer service (1-800-444-4444) and and was told that
> 16 countries are blocked.  They will be sending me the list of the
> countries.

> [Moderators Note: I doubt they will be sending you anything. AT&T
> has told me twice they would send me the list of origin/destination
> places they block, and they have yet to provide a list. This is an
> illegal, very discriminatory practice -- both by AT&T and MCI. ...

Well, MCI took so long to reply that I was starting to believe the
Moderator.  However, I just received a letter dated 26 September 1990
(19 days after I called) with the following information:

	Countries blocked for calling card calls are:

		Bangladesh		Malaysia
		Brazil			Mexico
		China			Morocco
		Colombia		Pakistan
		Dominican Republic	Peru
		Ecuador			Senegal
		Egypt			Sri Lanka
		India			Yemen

	If you need any more info in blockage, please
	call us.  800-444-3333

The information was handwritten on the back of a generic form letter
apologizing for a problem and it has the name of the customer service
representative I talked to.  Either MCI is willing to publicly admit
to the selective call blocking, or this representative wasn't properly
trained.


B.J.


[Moderator's Note: Thanks for passing along the answer you received.
Now let's see if anyone from AT&T responds with their listing. And if
they do? It still does not lessen the illegality of it, nor for MCI.
You cannot take a group of people, based on their ethnic origin, for
example Chinese or Egyptian people -- and who, after all, would be the
most likely users of international calls to those countries? -- and
say or imply to them "you cannot be trusted to make a call to your
home country on credit; you are likely to defraud us." And please,
AT&T, if you bother to respond, no bulljive about how the local telco
in San Fransisco is the culprit, or how the telephone administration
in China says they will take calls from the USA made on calling cards
from AT&T.  PAT]