Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: jyoull@andy.bgsu.edu (Jim Youll) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Strange "Calls To" Message-ID: <14523@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 8 Nov 90 12:25:24 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 27 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 804, Message 2 of 9 The calls were handled by a company called "Afford A Call". They used to be called "Litel" but that's irrelevant. I think I understand this correctly, and hope that I used the correct terminology to describe what they do. Basically, an aggregator buys a chunk of service from ATT or somebody who is actually a long distance provider, and receives a discount for the volume purchase. They then resell smaller bites of the bandwidth to guys like me at a miniscule profit and hope that I stay with them for a long time. Then they go out of business and I switch to someone else. They are starting to offer 800 service and some other features like six-second billing, but that's mainly a function of their billing software, not the route the calls take. Jim PS: Remember that this information is worth approximately 10% less than you paid for it, due to inflation. [Moderator's Note: Hey! That's not nice to say. The subscribers here pay premium rates for this little journal. PAT