Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!lll-winken!telecom-request From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 50k Counts of Wire Fraud Message-ID: Date: 18 May 91 04:15:39 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: I.E.C.C. Lines: 56 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 370, Message 3 of 9 In article is written: > Here there is a rule (unwritten but pretty strong) that you can't be > billed for a seven-digit call. When interchangable area codes arrive in about 1995, dial-1-for-money simply won't work any more. The leading 1 will have to mean that an area code follows. Unlucky folks in areas with old equipment will have to dial their own area code for same-area toll calls. I have lived both in New Jersey where a 1 means that an area code follows, and in Connecticut and Massachusetts where a 1 means a toll call. I like the New Jersey scheme better. For one thing, I don't usually care if a call I am about to make will cost me 12 cents or not, and having the phone exchange say "if you'd dialed that call with (or without) the leading 1, I would have completed it" can get rather annoying. For another, dial 1 for money is usually a lie. I have two lines at home here. On one (voice) I have "metropolitan service" which allows me to call anywhere in metro Boston at no per-call charge. On the other (data, mostly) I have local service which allows free calling to towns adjacent to mine and "message units" which are really toll charges to other places in metro Boston. On neither line do I dial a leading 1 for a metro Boston call -- if I dial a seven digit call to my sister in Lexington from the first line it costs nothing, but if I call her from the other it costs a minumum of 20 cents. There are quite a few places where you dial a leading 1 to call some distant metro prefixes, due to old equipment. There are other billing plans in which all metro calls are charged message units, but you get a monthly allowance of free message units. Finally, there is "Bay State East" service which for about $25/month gives you free metro calling and also two hours per month of free calling anywhere in the LATA. I have no idea what in this swamp of billing options one would really call a toll call and what one wouldn't. What the local telco does is to require a 1 before any non-metro call and also before any inter-area code call, even if the call is local. This means that if some evening from my second phone I call Marblehead, which is a 10 cent toll call, I have to dial a 1, but if I call Hull, which is a 27 cent message unit call, I can't dial a 1. I realize that there are still places where the distinction between local and non-local calls appears cast in concrete, but I expect that as time goes on message units and discount plans will fuzz the boundaries to the point where you won't be able to tell what's a toll call anywhere. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl PS: So why does one dial a 1 before an 800 number?