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From: johnl@think.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Baby Bell Credit Cards
Message-ID: <8706161923.AA17642@ima.ISC.COM>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 15:23:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ima.8706161923.AA17642
Posted: Tue Jun 16 15:23:38 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Jun-87 05:25:24 EDT
References: <8706112031.AA02528@jade.berkeley.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: think!ima!johnl@buit1.bu.edu (John R. Levine)
Distribution: world
Organization: Javelin Software Corporation
Lines: 34
Approved: telecom@buit1.bu.edu

The Baby Bells aren't enjoined from providing calling card service, just from
promoting it. With the current state of the phone network, credit card calls
are dialed the same way for intra-lata calls billed by the BOC and inter-lata
calls billed by AT&T. This meant that for practical purposes, the BOCs were
advertising an AT&T service, and that's a sin.

Here in New England, it's fairly simple to tell where the LATA boundaries are
and so who will handle any given call (they're area code boundaries, which
are the same as state boundaries, except that there are two area codes in
Massachusetts, soon to be three but the third won't create a new LATA, and in
Connecticut there's one or two towns that have service provided by New York
Tel and so are part of the New York city LATA.)  Other places, it's much
harder to tell. I challenge anyone to tell me who carries a call from New
York city to Hoboken (it's inter-LATA, but there's special case rules) or a
call from the Baltimore LATA to the Washington DC LATA when the two phones
are physically on the same exchange.

I also don't understand why all of the long distance companies don't use the
same calling card numbers. The numbers are actually issued by local operating
companies, both Bell and non-Bell, and provided to AT&T under some sort of
agreement. Surely if they can provide the numbers to AT&T, they can provide
them to MCI and Sprint. It's really stupid that I have four calling cards in
my wallet which contain three different variations on my phone number.

I'd be interested in hearing if there's any action planned for equal access
to pay phones. I know about the credit card phones found at airports; I was
more interested in regular pay phones. Is there any compelling reason that I
can make and pay for an AT&T call at a pay phone but not a Sprint call?

John Levine, ima!johnl or Levine@YALE.somethingorother
---
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something
U.S. out of New Mexico!