New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls

Thu Aug 18 17:53:43 UTC 2005

Thus spake "Robert Bonomi" <bonomi at mail.r-bonomi.com>
> *NOT* "other people's fraud".  Just when you have 'intra-LATA' toll
> charges for some numbers within a single area-code.  If the user is
> on one side of the area-code, and the provider's POP is on the far
> side of it, you can have a what appears to be a 'local' number, that
> does incur non-trivial per-minute charges.  Without knowing _where_
> a particular prefix is, you can't tell whether there will be toll charges
> for that call, or not, from any given call origin.

That's why some states (e.g. Texas) require that all toll calls be dialed as 
1+ _regardless of area code_, and local calls cannot be dialed as 1+.  If 
you dial a number wrong, you get a message telling you how to do it properly 
(and why).

Sure, this is a little confusing for out-of-towners, but it makes it 
impossible to accidentally dial a toll call when you think you're dialing a 
local one, which is the reason the PUC decreed it several decades ago. 
Apparently NY is just now catching up with rednecks from the 70s.

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 