Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: COCOTery!!! (I is ONE!!) Message-ID: <13506@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 13 Oct 90 20:01:30 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 55 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 733, Message 8 of 11 Macy Hallock writes: > 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. But COCOTs cannot be compared to competition in the long haul services arena. If I choose Sprint as my IEC, I deal with Sprint. Sprint does not resell AT&T and mark up the price, it sells me its own LD service and may actually be cheaper. It may even be better. THAT's competition. > So, what is different here? Why are COCOT's, after politicians, the > bane of the telecom user? A COCOT on the other hand, resells me Pac*Bell for local calls (I used to be able to get it directly with a Pac*Bell payphone), and resells me AT&T, Sprint, or Fred's Ripoff AOS (giving me no choice in the matter -- unlike a Pac*Bell phone) and marks the price way up. And unlike a Pac*Bell phone, a COCOT guesses at supervision and always guesses wrong at an unanswered cellular call, since there is a recording telling you that the unit is unavailable. Twenty cents down the drain. In addition, I can't shop because of physical location and convenience restraints. > 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. Yes, I agree. But there is no movement afoot anywhere to bring this to COCOTs. Equal access was a cornerstone of the MFJ; it is a dirty word to the sisters Bell when applied to COCOTs. Unless COCOTs can get coin service from the telco, they will always be garbage. There are those in Pac*Bell who tell me that the COCOT owners/operators want coin lines about as much as an IRS audit. Because of the nature of the beast, a lot of the control of a coin phone goes back to the telco CO. This means less gouging on calls, less "accidental" collection on incompleted calls, no intraLATA bypass, or any of the other shenanigans that COCOT owners have as a trademark. No, coin COS lines are not popular on either side of the asile. > 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. I agree, but don't hold your breath. When neither the supplier nor the customer (COCOT owners) want something, its chances of becoming reality are dim. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !