Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Sat, 27 Apr 91 23:23 PDT From: John Higdon Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Decreasing Costs of Transmission Reply-To: John Higdon Message-ID: Organization: Green Hills and Cows Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu 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 313, Message 2 of 8 Lines: 34 Jack Winslade writes: > I can imagine LD calls costing just > slightly over local calls of the same duration, but the most expensive > part of any call, local, LD, or international, may very well be the > local telco's charge for the local loop portion of the call, whether > it is to another local subscriber or the terminal point for an > interexchange carrier. The rate structure for calls outside of the innermost band (Zone 1 -- Local) is such that it is already distance unrelated in California. LATA calls are outrageously expensive. During the day, it is cheaper to call NYC on AT&T from San Jose than it is to call San Rafael, sixty miles to the north. Calls within California but outside the LATA are better, but not as good as interstate. A call to my 800 number from say, San Francisco, is $8.60/hr, but a call from San Diego (nearly 600 miles away) is $5.63/hr. This is an example of the stranglehold that LECs still have on the toll market. Pac*Bell still charges a fortune for calls that it carries. I know of someone who ran up over $200 on calls to a girl friend on the other side of town in one month who was just out of the local radius. What he did not realize that he would have been better off if she had lived out of state! In fact, most knowledgeable types who cannot find a good UUCP connection within the local calling radius look for one in another state rather than settle for one in the Bay Area with the ultra ripoff rates. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !