Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway
From: straka@ihlpf.att.com (Straka)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Divestiture was not a mistake
Message-ID: <telecom-v09i0131m04@vector.dallas.tx.us>
Date: 10 Apr 89 13:00:54 GMT
Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US
Reply-To: "55223-Straka,R.J." <straka@ihlpf.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
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Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 131, message 4 of 11

In article <telecom-v09i0126m01@vector.dallas.tx.us> optilink!cramer@ames.arc.
nasa.gov (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 126, message 1 of 8

|In article <telecom-v09i0123m05@vector.UUCP|, decvax!decwrl!apple!zygot!john
|@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (John Higdon) writes:
|| In article <telecom-v09i0121m06@vector.UUCP|, eli@ursa-major.spdcc.com
|| | (Steve Elias) writes:
|| | I don't think the answer is to allow any one company to monopolize
|| | long distance service.  If the pay phones were required to display

|| I agree the choice may not be monopolization by one company, but our
|| regulators must understand that free market principles do not apply to
|| pay phones. You cannot shop from phone to phone to find the best deal
|| or even find one that will work. By its very nature, a pay phone is a

|If it's REALLY a "quasi-emergency device", then price is really not an
|issue.  Would you object to paying $2 to make a phone call for an
|ambulance after a traffic accident?

All of this sure sounds like a classic "natural monopoly" to me.  A classic
monopoly is where it is "naturally" too expensive for more than one supplier
to provide a particular service.  This is normally due to some geographic,
supply/demand considerations (applies pretty well to the accident reporting
case, above).

Of course, the airport pay phone is a bit of a different animal.  There is
enough demand to support several suppliers here.  It does appear to the busy
traveller, however, that he is facing a slightly less than competitive
situation.  This is due to a real lack of information about the services the
customer is trying to acquire.

Anyway, is sure sounds to me like the real issue here is the abysmal lack of
consumer information. How can true competition (read that as free consumer
choice) exist without free access AND consumer information?

DISCLAIMER:  I work for AT&T, (and may be slightly biased) but I'll be glad to
let the customers decide, as long as they can freely choose with the necessary
information to make an intelligent choice.
--
Rich Straka     att!ihlpf!straka

MSDOS: All the wonderfully arcane syntax of UNIX(R), but without the power.