Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!vector!nobody From: anon@nowhere.uucp Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Equal Access?? My foot!! Message-ID: Date: 27 Jan 89 15:54:59 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 35 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 37, message 2 Should I ask Harold Green For $30.00? ===================================== Here is a tale of woe. We were in Florida on vacation when I tried to make a call from the hotel room phone to Chicago. Wanting to use the AT&T as a long distance carrier (I am an employee plus I get a discount), I dialed an operator and got an "International Telecharge" operator somewhere in Texas. When I asked to be connected to an AT&T operator, the reply was "we cannot do that" (!!). So I went to a payphone on the street and got exactly the same result!!! The "equall access code" (i.e. 01-288) did not work either. So I asked the ITI operator how can I go about making a long distance call using AT&T, her answer was that if I dial direct using my AT&T credit card, the call would be automatically billed to AT&T. Somehow that did not sound right to me, but I went ahead and dialed DIRECTLY using AT&T card. What choice did I have at that point anyway? Well, you may have guessed it. When the bill came, all the calls were billed as International Telecharge Operator Assisted (!!) calls. The price? About $1.25 a minute for a late evening call from Florida (Marco Island) to Chicago. I can call Europe for less than that! I called Illinois Bell and Southern Bell consumer affair departments and basically their answer was, sorry, but that is the way it is. I guess I am out of 30 bucks and somewhat wiser. But if this is what the deregulation was all about, I think it stinks. Peter Pavlovcik, att!iexist!peter [Moderator's Note: Yep, that is what degregulation is all about. Why don't you write Harold Greene and tell him what a mess he has made of the phone network. Share his response with us, if he deigns to answer you.]