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From: aablue.aablue.com.uux!macy@uunet.uucp (Macy Hallock)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: COCOTery!!! (I is ONE!!)
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Date: 12 Oct 90 01:29:00 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 732, Message 1 of 11


>Mr. Churchfield's Confession tells me that COCOTs are a bad deal for
>all: utility, owner/operator, and customer. So once again I ask the
>question: who was supposed to benefit and how in the matter of COCOTs?

Hmmm...  I am certainly no fan of COCOT's.  I cannot agree with the
conclusions John draws from the facts presented, though.

What conclusions would we reach if we applied the same arguments to
the AT&T break-up?

At one time, the local telco and the sole provider of long haul
services used the same argument in an attempt to convince the world
that competition would raise costs and damage the network.

As most of us have already noticed, the U.S. telephone network still
works...

So, what is different here?  Why are COCOT's, after politicians, the
bane of the telecom user?

To continue with the same analogy:

What completed the tranformation of the US network to successful
competition in long distance market, to the beneift of all users
(large and small), was the introduction of equal access.  This created
a level enough playing field that 1+ services compete.  In theory, at
least, all carriers pay the same rates to the telcos and receive the
same services.  Once the carriers completed the construction of their
networks, and the telcos installed equal access, true competition
emerged.

In the COCOT business, this is not the case.  Ever tried to get answer
supervision or Coin Trunk services from a telco?  They give it to
their own phones, but not on COCOT lines.  Ever wonder why AT&T has
not entered the COCOT business except in very high traffic locations
where high volumes of credit card calling exists (like airports)?
They can't get decent, equal coin trunk services from the telcos
either.

IMHO, COCOT's won't be practical until the CO based coin services are
made available to all paying customers.  I think the telcos could find
this quite profitable if they could only change their monopoly-based
way of thinklng.

Note: I have intentionally not gone into technical detail concerning
the operation of coin trunks and other CO type services.  I have also
omitted discussion of the cost of back-hauling calls and credit card
database access.  This has been done to keep this posting to a
reasonable length.  I'm sure we can cover these topics in some detail
on follow up postings.


Macy M. Hallock, Jr.     macy@NCoast.ORG      uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy