Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!sask!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!ludemann
From: ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (Peter Ludemann)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: High Duties => Increased Competitiveness?
Message-ID: <71@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 16:29:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.71
Posted: Wed Oct 23 16:29:31 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 03:41:43 EDT
References: <2649@watcgl.UUCP> <440@looking.UUCP> <851@lsuc.UUCP>
Reply-To: ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (Peter Ludemann)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 27
Summary: 

In article <851@lsuc.UUCP> jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) writes:
>     My own argument is that local phone costs should go up and that
>long distance in general should decrease (at the very least relative
>to current phone costs).  The basis for this is the phone companies'
>own complaint that local calls are being heavily subsidized by long
>distance and special services.

I can't resist replying to this one.  I have watched a B.C. Tel
employee spend the better part of a day to install one phone in an
office and then, when the phone didn't work properly, inform
everyone that repair service would have to be called becausee he
only did installations.  (B.C. Tel is, of course, one of the telcos
which claims that local costs are heavily subsidized by long
distance tolls.)

I think the problem is more subtle.  The telcos haven't had to
be efficient for local service, so labour has gotten away with
such practices and management hasn't bothered to enforce a
bit of efficiency (I have heard plenty of horror stories about
multi-million dollar management screw-ups).  I wonder what
the phone rates would be if local service had to be competitive?

-- 
-- Peter Ludemann
	ludemann@ubc-cs.uucp (ubc-vision!ubc-cs!ludemann)
	ludemann@cs.ubc.cdn  (ludemann@cs.ubc.cdn@ubc.mailnet)
	ludemann@ubc.csnet   (ludemann%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA)