Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: IZZYAS1@mvs.oac.ucla.edu (Andy Jacobson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones Message-ID: Date: 17 Feb 91 16:40:00 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 24 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 128, Message 2 of 9 John Higdon writes: > But listen to the cries of doom when a COCOT rips off > someone for a few extra bucks on a long distance call. "It is all > Judge Greene's fault." Baloney! If the public does not like COCOTs, it > will not use them and they will go away. If the public is too stupid > to know the difference, then it gets what it deserves. Agreed, but John, we often aren't given much of a choice. For example when I needed to call someone from a shopping center in Vista, and found the whole place wired with Ultra-Rip-Off (TM) phones, that wanted $1.75 for a call. I had to go miles, like three, to find a real Pac*Bell phone that would charge me only $0.40 for the same call (I was going away from where I was calling). I bet that if you had a COCOT and an LEC pay phone right next to each other, 99% of passers by would choose the LEC phone. Most people have the savvy to avoid COCOTS if given a choice. The point is that we are rarely presented with that choice. The same applies to 10XXX blocking. AOS only exist because we can't (or are deceived into believing we can't) reach our prefered carrier. Andy Jacobson or