New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls

Thu Aug 18 19:13:20 UTC 2005

> Cc: <nanog at nanog.org>
> Subject: Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
> Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:53:43 -0500
> 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).

In some places that "solution" is _not_practical_.  As in where the same
three digit sequence is in use as a C.O. 'prefix', *and* as an areacode.
(an where, in some 'perverse' situations, the foreign area-code is a 
'non-toll' call, yet the bare prefix within the areacode is a toll call.

It also becomes 'utterly meaningless', when _all_ calls incur a usage 
("message units" or something similar) charge.  