Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!vector!nobody From: gast@CS.UCLA.EDU (David Gast) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: USA-Direct Message-ID: Date: 27 Jan 89 04:48:48 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 60 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 33, message 2 > ...In November, AT&T announcd the addition of three new countries to its > USADIRECT service. Now you can dial an access number from 51 countries > to directly reach an AT&T operator in the US. In some countries you can > dial from any residential, business, or public telephone. In others you > must use a dedicated telephone located in hotels, airports and seaports. > And you can use your AT&T card or make a collect call. There's no extra > charge for the service. For more information, call (800) 874-4000." > ***End of item*** > [Comments: I called the 800 number given and asked a couple questions. > The man at the other end said that "no extra charge" in the above means > that, though this service bypasses the foreign country's overseas > operators, you are billed at the regular overseas-call rate for your > call. It just saves you time and hassle to do it this way. They don't > split the call charge into separate overseas-to-US and internal-US > segments, charging separately for each, which is what I had first > envisioned.] Note: I also called several different times and got several different stories from your beloved AT&T. One time I was told that the calls had to be made from special phones; another time I was given a number to dial; another time, the person did not know what I was talking about. USADIRECT? What's that. For the country I inquired about, it is the same price every minute of every day. That rate is fairly reasonable too (except for the fact that there is no reason that there should not be off peak use discounts) and the mandatory operator assisted charges. By fairly reasonable, I mean it costs less than the other country charges for an *operated assisted* call. Based on the above information, I would say that the 'no extra charge' is just marketing hype. They set the rates and then they say there is no *EXTRA* charge. The charges are definitely not the same from X to USA as from the USA to X, even if both are operated assisted. I also fail to see how using USADIRECT saves time or hassle. If you have to go to a special phone, it almost certainly does neither. It might save money, but it might not. From the above country X, it is possible to use a pre-paid phone card or coins at many phones to call the U.S. at direct dial rates. Depending on how long you talk, it may be cheaper than USADIRECT. (By the way, the cards are available every- where, the foreign language name is phonecard, and the largest coin is worth about $4.00, so it is not as if you have to have a stack of dimes available although the marginal incremental cost is about one dime.) The commercials for the service are hogwash as well. I have never tried to make an international call where the operator did not speak English. In many countries they start speaking in English. Perhaps they figure that since AT&T's operators do not speak German or Japanese, foreign countries' operators do not speak English. I suspect that the rules, prices, etc differ from country to country, but I don't have any proof since I only inquired about one country. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast