Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
Not unreasonable at all (although personally, I like
the TX-style "all your long distance are 11D, else
10D" approach). Simple consumer protection, similar
to the <offtopic warning!>
Ahem; MD has to me the most viable approach:
type: local toll
7D NFG NFG
10D OK NFG
11D OK OK
where the defn of toll is "by the minute".
Face it, 7D is dead; and even if overlays had not arrived,
cell phones would have killed it. Once you learn to think 10D,
it's trivial.
But there are some people who are too stubborn and pigheaded^Y^Y^Y
feel differently about this issue...
Face it, 7D is dead; and even if overlays had not arrived, cell
phones would have killed it. Once you learn to think 10D, it's
trivial.
Oh, you ignorant rednecks.* Even my cell phone has 7D dialing and
it'll be a century before overlays arrive where I live.
The reason that it makes sense for an ISP to warn its customers about
surprise toll calls is that toll rates have gotten so low that for the
most part, we don't worry about them. Due to the peculiar
telegeography in my area, a 7D call within my area code could be
local, intra-LATA toll, or inter-LATA toll. But the most expensive of
those is 8 cents/min so for voice calls, I don't care, and I really
appreciate not having the insane Texas plan where you have to memorize
every single local prefix to be able to make a fripping phone call.
Since ISP calls are long, even low toll rates add up, and that makes
them unusual enough to be worth warning people.
I really have to put some of the blame on telcos here. Every prefix
in the country is assigned to a rate center, every phone has a set of
rate centers that are local, and it's not rocket science to do the
cross-product and tell people what numbers are local to them. CLEC or
ILEC doesn't matter, nor does the location of the switch. I realize
there are a few wacky prefixes that are local to the whole LATA, but
they seem to be getting less common rather than more, and there's few
enough of them to special case.
R's,
John
* - from small towns along the MD/VA border that combine northern
charm with southern efficiency
Face it, 7D is dead; and even if overlays had not arrived, cell
phones would have killed it. Once you learn to think 10D, it's
trivial.
Oh, you ignorant rednecks.* Even my cell phone has 7D dialing and
it'll be a century before overlays arrive where I live.
The reason that it makes sense for an ISP to warn its customers about
surprise toll calls is that toll rates have gotten so low that for the
most part, we don't worry about them. Due to the peculiar
telegeography in my area, a 7D call within my area code could be
local, intra-LATA toll, or inter-LATA toll. But the most expensive of
those is 8 cents/min so for voice calls, I don't care, and I really
Duh. I pay less for an international trans-atlantic call for premium
voice minutes in retail (US$0.04/minute). Wholesale I get the same
minute for less than 2 cents (US$). A 64kbit/s transparent ISDN call
on the same path costs 3 cents (US$). And I'm in Switzerland. So it
seems to be cheaper for me to call you than it is for you to call someone
in the next LATA.
And people wonder why the ILECs are sitting on fat wads of
cash?
I can get US48 LD for $.02/min. I've found it cheaper sending
calls this way then paying for an unlimited plan.
Most people in the US can get unlimited LD plans on their POTS
service for around $60/mo (with most taxes, etc... included).
Regular POTS service can be had for around $14/mo (no frills,
no dtmf, etc..) around here at the most cut rate discount plans.
When i cancelled my Vonage service, they were willing to
to offer me service for $5 or $6/mo to keep me as a customer.
I've found that connecting directly to the PSTN via POTS to
be quite expensive compared to most of the alternatives out there,
I think it's only a matter of time before one of the ILECS (probally
one of the non-major CO-OPs or consortiums) switches over to unlimited
domestic plans to capture the LD, as most people don't use enough
on an unlimited plan to justify it.
Face it, 7D is dead; and even if overlays had not arrived, cell
phones would have killed it. Once you learn to think 10D, it's
trivial.
Oh, you ignorant rednecks.* Even my cell phone has 7D dialing and
it'll be a century before overlays arrive where I live.
Great. Store 7D numbers in your phone's directory and drive a few hours in any direction; see if they still work. _That_ is why mobile phones are killing off 7D, not because of dialing patterns or overlays.
I really appreciate not having the insane Texas plan where you have
to memorize every single local prefix to be able to make a fripping
phone call.
When you have seven nearby area codes (like I do), and parts of each of them can be local or toll, there's no hope of memorizing prefixes. You guess based on the distance, and you either get through or a recording tells you that you guessed wrong. If you thought a number was local and it turns out to be toll, that may make you think twice about whether you need to find a closer number or perhaps not talk as long.
I find it to be nuts that some places have 7D toll calls and 11D local calls; how can you have any clue what (if anything) you're paying without calling the operator?
Back before CLECs, SWB's phone books had a map with the prefixes assigned to each exchange and rules to determine if a call was local or toll. Now, with ten times as many prefixes per exchange (and several possible area codes for each) and new prefixes being added every week, that's simply not practical anymore.
S
Stephen Sprunk "Those people who think they know everything
CCIE #3723 are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
K5SSS --Isaac Asimov
Thus spake "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com>
>>Face it, 7D is dead; and even if overlays had not arrived, cell
>>phones would have killed it. Once you learn to think 10D, it's
>>trivial.
>
>Oh, you ignorant rednecks.* Even my cell phone has 7D dialing and
>it'll be a century before overlays arrive where I live.
Great. Store 7D numbers in your phone's directory and drive a few hours in
any direction; see if they still work. _That_ is why mobile phones are
killing off 7D, not because of dialing patterns or overlays.
humm.... there are 7d #'s in my cell and some 3d #'s also.
and some 14d and lots of 10d numbers. regardless, when i
drive a few hours -WEST- (that would be 140-200 mile off the
LA coast...), none of them work... unless i carry
a micro/pico cell and sat uplink w/ me... (yes the car needs
a hull and a powerplant from a Cigarette). GSM is such a PITA.
And only a few locations I am aware of (Parts of the Gulf of Mexico)
have any cell coverage more than a mile or two offshore w/o
adjunct support (see above)
When you have seven nearby area codes (like I do), and parts of each of them
can be local or toll, there's no hope of memorizing prefixes. You guess based
on the distance, and you either get through or a recording tells you that you
guessed wrong.
Here in Atlanta, the local calling area is a huge ellipse-like shape with a
wide radius of something like 100 miles, entirely containing four NPAs (404,
678, 770, and the inactive[*] 470), and with access to edge-touching
prefixes in three others (256, 478, and 706). 10D dialing for local calls
has been around for some time, and is standardized to the point of locals
regularly using shorthand for NPA (4/XXX-XXXX is 404; 7/XXX-XXXX is 770).
1+10D is always used for toll calls, and you get an intercept recording if
you guessed wrong about the leading 1.
I've found the overlay scheme to be so much more straightforward; 10D
numbers are constant length and proper detection about use of leading 1
keeps unintended tolls out of the way.
I find it to be nuts that some places have 7D toll calls and 11D local calls;
how can you have any clue what (if anything) you're paying without calling the
operator?
You don't easily. And the worst part is, the dialing pattern varies even
more wildly throughout the US. NANPA keeps a record of these patterns:
We used to refer to 10 digit dialing as 17 digit dialing cuz you'd
dial 7 then realize oops flash and dial 10.
Since this is almost ubiquitous one wonders why no one* sells a phone
with a big red DIAL LOCAL AREA CODE button you can set up? I realize
us nerds can manage to set up speed dial features to do this (actually
I have almost zero patience for diddling with such things personally)
but c'mon you want the big red clown nose to push, (PFX) NPAXXXX, it
could even act as another "ON" button (you usually have to push
something to get a dial tone on most modern phones, particularly
cordless.)
What was the question again?
* Well how can I say with authority "no one" but I've never seen this.