Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls

[Robert Bonomi <bonomi () mail r-bonomi com>]

> From owner-nanog () merit edu  Fri Aug 19 14:37:28 2005
> From: Barry Shein <bzs () world std com>
> Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:31:42 -0400
> To: nanog () nanog org
> Subject: Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
>
>
>
> Can't one still get minimal phone service which charges a toll on
> every phone call? I know this used to cost like $5/mo but I think they
> eliminated it in MA a few years ago, or made it hardship-only.

Authoritative answer: "Maybe."

Depends on the locale, the state regulators, and the phone company.

Frequently called "Lifeline" service, when marketed for the elderly,
disabled, etc.

Also called "measured zero" -- when offered to the general public (for
the 'cheap SOB' customer)

> Simple business lines here normally charge for every phone call, 1MB
> as they're called, MB = Measured Business tho I guess that's not what
> Spitzer was concerned with.
>
> But that's a big part of the problem, the telcos don't make this
> information readily available in a form ISPs can use, and even if they
> did it'd depend on the specific service option the customer had. In
> our experience customers don't generally know what phone service they
> have in any useful way (such as the exact name the telco calls it,
> circle dialing, metro calling, etc.)

I've had an ILEC refuse to tell me (a CLEC customer) where _their_ "rate 
center" for my numbers was.  That it was 'proprietary' information that they
would not release to non-customers.  Never mind the fact that the reason
I wanted it, was to give it to those of *their* customers who were,
incidentally, also my customers.
> And boy howdy we've tried to help, motivated by the occasional livid
> customer who got an unexpectedly large bill. We've had a warning just
> like the one suggested on our pick a number since before some list
> members here were born.

It *is* definitely 'good business practice' to supply such advice to 
"double check" the suggested number.

I question the _requirement_ -- and penalties for failure -- to do so.

The area transit authority publishes a _single_ 7-digit number that you
can call from anywere in the 6 NPA region they service to get travel
information.  For large portions of the territory dialing that 'same NPA'
number results in a pricey INTRA-LATA toll call.   For a differently-
delimited large area, dialing a different NPA, and then that 7-digits
gets you a much _less_expensive_ call to an apparent destination that 
is (apparently, based on the rates) much 'closer to home'.

Why isn't the gov't requiring *them* to run a similar disclaimer  -- and
with severe penalties for non-compliance -- on all their materials listing
that number?

> In my not insignificant experience there's some VP inside every RBOC
> cackling madly over the revenues generated by this confusion.
>
> And, no, don't give me the old "don't attribute to malice what can be
> adequately explained by stupidity."

It is *definitely* not stupidity.

In the case mentioned above, the ILEC was handing calls off to the
CLEC at points away from where the 'nearest' ILEC-CLEC inter-connect
to the CLEC POP was.  Calls to lines that were only a few dozens of
numbers apart were being routed through _different_ tie-points, with
*different* costs to the caller.

> Double-digit billion $$ companies don't make universal, big revenue
> generating mistakes over a period of probably 50 years with no doubt
> millions of complaints (not just ISP dialing) out of "stupidity".
>
> Such confusion is their stock in trade.
>
> And I suspect that's, as Paul Harvey used to say, "The rest of the
> story". Spitzer's office must have tried to look into why ISPs et al
> can't just make a reasonably accurate suggestion to customers looking
> for a phone number and, upon querying the telcos, was met with a big:
> hahahahahahaha yeah, right!
>
> It's too obvious to have possibly been missed.
>
> -- 
>         -Barry Shein
>
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