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From: stv@qantel.UUCP (Steve Vance)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Long Distance Services
Message-ID: <153@qantel.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Jul-84 13:19:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: qantel.153
Posted: Tue Jul 24 13:19:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 09:18:29 EDT
Organization: MDS Qantel, Hayward CA.
Lines: 63

>
> Ok, folks, here's an interesting one for y'all.  Southern Bell has started
> telling us that we may now choose a default long distance company, other
> than good old ATT.  I.e., you can choose who you'll get when you dial 1
> and/or 0.  This will work for both dial (pulse) and touch tone phones.

> So, (despite the gratitude we owe ATT for inventing UNIX :-) what long 
> distance phone company should I go with?  Do any of them supply operator 
> assistance?  What is the quality of the connection I'll get? etc...

This concept has been part of the AT&T divestiture almost from the start.
You will someday be asked who you want as your default long-distance phone
company, and any direct-dialed calls you make from then on are handed
off to that company automatically--you just dial the number (for
example: 1-415-555-1212) and Sprint or MCI (or whichever of the 200 or
so long-distance providers registered with the FCC you specify) will bill 
you for the call.  The BOCs (local phone companies) are required to
provide room in their billing envelopes to the LDCs (Long-Distance
Companies) for the sheet containing your long distance charges for the
month (the way AT&T does now), but I hear that the larger companies would
much rather continue to send their own bills, though I'm not sure why.

You can specify AT&T to be your default long-distance provider, as they
now are, and nothing will change with your phone service.  If you do
not respond to the request that you specify a default long-distance
provider, AT&T will continue to be your default, although you can
change this at any time.  Some BOCs are planning to offer a "Cheapest
Routing" option, where each call is handed off to the LDC with the
lowest rate for that particular call, with the BOC adding a very small
surcharge for this service.

Even when you have picked a default LDC, it will be easier to make calls
using other LDCs.  Each LDC will be assigned a code number, like "0100"
for AT&T, "0101" for Sprint, "0102" for MCI, etc.  When you want a call
to go with a company other than your default LDC, you can just insert
the code number between the "1" and the rest of the number, and that
call will be handed to the LDC corresponding to that code number.  Say,
for example, you're making an important cross country modem call, and
you want to use AT&T for this call.  You would dial 1-0100-202-555-1212,
and that call would be placed with AT&T, even though your default LDC is
MCI (for example).

In this regard, you can see that you can still use AT&T for
operator-assisted calls, even if they're not your default LDC.  They
already surcharge accordingly for these operator-assisted services.
Other LDCs are free to provide operator-assisted services, though I
haven't heard any announce plans to do so.

As to quality of service, this changes every day, so the two articles
Consumer Reports has done are way out-of-date.  A friend of mine that
works at Sprint says that they have completely ripped out all of their
call-handling hardware and replaced it with new equipment three times 
in the last five years, and MCI spokespeople are always talking about 
how far behind the state-of-the-art AT&Ts equipment is.  With this new
system of code numbers for each LDC, you will be able to experiment with
different companies.  I suspect that there will be little difference
between the quality of service (or the price!) of the top five or six
companies after a couple of years.

Steve Vance
{ucbvax,ihnp4,zehntel,onyx}!dual!qantel!stv
Qantel Corporation, Hayward, CA