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From: leichter@lrw.com (Jerry Leichter)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: On Who You Owe When Slammed
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Date: 15 Dec 90 13:58:56 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 882, Message 1 of 9


The Moderator continues to opine that, even if you are "slammed", you
still should have to pay for the calls you make, at least at the
minimum of the rate charged by your chosen carrier and the one who
slammed you.

This is wrong.  Let's consider a simple analogy: I have a Federal
Express envelope that I want delivered overnight.  I leave it on top
of the nearest FedEx box - assume the box is full, or that what I'm
sending doesn't fit inside.  I include a billing number for FedEx to
charge.

You come along, see the envelope, pick it up, and deliver it to its
destination; you get it there at least as early as FedEx would have.
You now try to bill me for the delivery, at the same rate as FedEx
would have.

Your claim, of course, is that you provided exactly the same service
as FedEx, so are entitled to the same fee.  However, the claim is
nonsense: I chose to use FedEx, rather than Pat's Delivery, because I
have much greater confidence in them.  Sure, this time Pat's Delivery
got it there safely; but maybe next time Pat will get lost, or get
delayed, or hit by a truck.  Coverage for the things that might have
happened, but didn't, is part of the service that I'm buying from
FedEx.  Pat's hasn't delivered that service.

Now, you can argue that after all the service available from MCI or
Sprint is really essentially the equal of that from AT&T.  But that's
not your argument to make.  *I* am the one who has made the choice of
services, and I am the one who is entitled to decide the value of the
different services to me.  Whether my decisions are rational or
irrational is of no importance.  The service I have contracted for is
AT&T's, and no matter what MCI may be able to provide in the way of
long-distance connections, they are inherently incapable of BEING
AT&T.  I owe MCI nothing.


Jerry