Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!ames!killer!vector!telecom-gateway From: pf@islington-terrace.csc.ti.com (Paul Fuqua) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: How big can a Local Dialing Area be? Message-ID: Date: 31 Mar 89 18:46:43 GMT Sender: news@vector.UUCP Lines: 28 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 121, message 5 of 6 Date: Wednesday, March 29, 1989 12:28pm (CST) From: folta at tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) Subject: How big can a Local Dialing Area be? But is this really a very large area? How large might a local call area be in LA or NY? Are all local dialing areas determined by distance, or might there be an *enormous* exchange out in Montana somewhere that includes thousands of square miles but only a few thousand people? (It would be interesting to hear about maximal sizes in terms of: area, number of people, and number of exchanges.) The local calling area in Dallas includes the city itself, plus most of the first two rings of suburbs and DFW airport. That's a rough square 25 or 30 miles on a side, so 600 to 900 square miles. Between 1 and 2 million people, more than 300 exchanges. Also, it's all "free" -- there's no measured local service here, except for a couple of economy and business plans that charge per-call. Southwestern Bell keeps trying to institute time-and-distance charging for local calls (ie, message units), but the PUC keeps shooting them down. Paul Fuqua pf@csc.ti.com {smu,texsun,cs.utexas.edu,rice}!ti-csl!pf Texas Instruments Computer Science Center PO Box 655474 MS 238, Dallas, Texas 75265