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From: decwrl!well.sf.ca.us!well!mingo@uunet.uu.net (Charles Hawkins Mingo)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Mysteries of Reach Out World
Message-ID: <15839@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 05:09:09 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 12, Message 6 of 11


In article <15775@> johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine)
writes:

>But the most obscure thing in the flyer was the footnote on calls to
>Canada.  Calls to Canada cost 18 cents/minute off-peak, with off-peak
>being before 8 AM, after 5PM and all day weekends.  But the footnote
>says "There are additional charges when calling Atlin, Canada."  Where
>is that?

	Rest assured that very few Canadians would know where "Atlin,
Canada" is (especially since a place-name is usually given with the
province, not the country).  A quick check reveals that Atlin is a
small mining town in the extreme NW corner of British Columbia, near
the Yukon border.  It's over a hundred miles NNE of Juneau, Alaska, so
you can imagine what the climate is like.

	I'm not sure why Atlin is singled out thus; however, I do know
that facilities to remote company towns (which Atlin appears to be)
are often provided by the company running the operation, and not the
usual LD provider (which is Telecom Canada).  Thus, even if AT&T has a
deal with Telecom Canada, it may have to pay extra to whomever owns
the lines to Atlin.  (I've also heard that that section of BC (behind
the Alaskan panhandle) sometimes gets phone service from Alaska, as
opposed to southern BC.)

	I'll bet that very few US residents have ever called Atlin,
and that there's some obscure legal reason why AT&T felt compelled to
use the footnote (after all, why not just tell us what the rate to
Atlin is, instead of suggesting it might be different?)


Charlie Mingo			Internet: mingo@well.sf.ca.us 
2209 Washington Circle #2	mingo@cup.portal.com
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