Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: ceb@csli.stanford.edu (Charles Buckley) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: More on BBSs and Phone Rates Message-ID: <15867@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 7 Jan 91 09:53:25 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 78 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 14, Message 1 of 7 > Discussion on this topic is necessary, since who knows > how many phone company-types read this Digest? Maybe they'll think > about what they do to modemers. > Aimee Tweedie usergs8c@mts.rpi.edu > Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY > [Moderator's Note: Two issues are involved here: (1) should 'business' > phones pay higher rates than 'residence' phones; (2) who should define > what is a 'business' and what is not. . . . No it's even simpler: Michigan Bell is trying to collect marginal costs for high usage using a rate structrure which is blind to it. This has nothing to do with the BBS line, but instead the lines which call it. These are also often flat-rate residential lines in the local calling area whose subscribers derive enormous economic benefit, since they make heavy use of a line tarriffed for only intermittent calling. I think Michigan Bell probably has a case, but they only look like bullies when they try to solve their money problems by shaking down the lonely sysop. They should try instead for the introduction of universal measured rate service. This has been extremely unpopular in the past, because the rates proposed each time it's been tried have been quite high. The concept itself is a good one. I wouldn't mind paying, $.30-$.40/hour for a non-stop local call, especially if my subscription were only $3.00/month. I don't believe this will work - unmeasured service is a sacred cow in too many places. Failing that, making special class of 976 number available to the BBS sysops, perhaps on a pro bono basis, which charged callers, say, $.40/hour plus any toll, would permit closing this hole in the rate structure without substantially revising it, give the LEC their due, and not unduly burden callers (it's certainly cheaper than Compu$urcharge). It would also take the phone company and BBS sysops out of their current adversarial relationship, and make them "partners in fostering computer literacy" (the final selection of the warm fuzzy corp-speak phrase I leave to the minions). In fact, I bet it's even possible to get 976 numbers at these per-call rates now, and the only thing keeping sysops from doing this (apart from lack of knowledge that they can) is a high subscription (fixed) charge, which means that if no-one calls the BBS some month, the sysop has to pay lots (the price of unpopularity!). Anyone who deals in `sin numbers' want to comment if and under what conditions a subscriber can break even at such rates? For sure, there are going to be sysops who rightly fear for the damage to their reputation when *hundreds* jump to the typical conclusion that it's just *got* to be a porno BBS (and be usuriously expensive to call) since it has a 976 number ;'>. And, maybe the sysops only wanted to raise hell anyway ... [Moderator's Note: Well I can tell you that when unlimited local service was eliminated here in Chicago a few years ago, it was in part because of the tremendous hogs modem users were making of themselves. We had a variety of umlimited calling plans here for set monthly rates. Understandably telco wanted to make some money on the deal. Some modem users were going through more than ten thousand 'message units' per month on unlimited calling residential service plans, paying $20-30 per month! The local Diversi-dial boards were linking up with each other all over northern Illinois and staying connected for the entire weekend, etc. Telco finally said enough already ... the abusers ruined unlimited local calling for everyone. When the local area 'free calling plans' were eliminated here and people started paying only for they actually used, almost everyone priased the new plan. And who raised the biggest stink about the new plan? Why, the modem users and BBS sysops, of course! They'd have to actually start paying for those several hours at a time on line to the chat systems where they had previously stayed logged in while they went out to eat, etc. What previously cost $20-30 per month started costing $150 per month! PAT]