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From: WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA (William G. Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Charges for "unlisting"
Message-ID: <12339029180.10.WMARTIN@SIMTEL20.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 1-Oct-87 11:51:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: SIMTEL20.12339029180.10.WMARTIN
Posted: Thu Oct  1 11:51:39 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Oct-87 23:25:34 EDT
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Does anyone know how the telcos now justify their charges for "unlisting"
now that they also charge for Directory Assistance? If anyone out there
has access to the data presented to their state's Public Service (or Public
Utilities, or whatever) Commission, I'd be interested to hear just what
argument a local telco now gives for charging customers to NOT be listed
in their various directories or number-giving services.

It was my understanding that, in past years, these charges were justified
by an increased load on Information or Directory Assistance, which was then
free; you were charged some fee for an unlisted number because people
couldn't find you in the directory and called Information, who then 
expended resources to discover that you were unlisted and told the caller
that. This cost the telco some money, of course, so they charged the
person who was not listed to make up for it. Annoying but logical.

Now, though, the situation is changed. The telcos make money from calls
to Information/Diretory Assistance! They charge for most (or all) of such
calls, so they should be happy to have vast numbers of "unlisted"
subscribers generating extra revenue via fruitless Information calls.
So how do they NOW justify charging subscribers to be "unlisted"?

I'd like to know what creative excuses they've dreamed up...

Regards,
Will Martin
"wmartin@almsa-1.arpa"
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