New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls

Jared Mauch jared at puck.nether.net
Fri Aug 19 17:40:20 UTC 2005


On Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 07:29:44PM +0200, Andre Oppermann wrote:
> 
> John Levine wrote:
> >>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.

	- jared

-- 
Jared Mauch  | pgp key available via finger from jared at puck.nether.net
clue++;      | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/  My statements are only mine.



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