Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Can I Be Charged to Have My Number Not Listed?
Message-ID: <3765@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 90 06:17:19 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 94, message 6 of 6


It is in the telephone companies' interest if it is as easy as
possible for its customers to telephone as many people as possible.
Then, more people will want to have phones, and they will make more
calls.

But unlisted* numbers make it harder for people to phone people,
because they have to get, and keep track of, the number themselves.
So it is not in the phone companies' interest for there to be many
unlisted numbers.  (As an extreme case consider life in a country
where telephone directories and Directory Assistance do not exist at
all, as I've heard is/was true in at least some Communist countries.
And if true, will this now be changing?)

For this reason alone, a charge for having an unlisted number is
reasonable.  Indeed, this reason seems to me to make much more sense
than the "exception processing" argument more often cited.

In my opinion the phone companies' interest here happens to coincide
with the public interest; if I was making the rules, numbers listed
under fictitious names would be illegal and unlisted numbers would
require approval (granted if there was harassment or the likelihood of
it).

Here, this term implies also that Directory Assistance people will not
give out the number, or even know that it exists.  Usage elsewhere may
differ.


Mark Brader	     "I can direct dial today a man my parents warred with.
Toronto		      They wanted to kill him, I want to sell software to him."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com				-- Brad Templeton