🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2005-02-02, Michael <paradad@cableone.net> wrote:
> James J. Lippard wrote:
>> On 2005-02-01, Michael <paradad@cableone.net> wrote:
>> 
>>>James J. Lippard wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 2005-01-31, Wotan <wotan@not.netcom> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Michael  demonstrated that booze and posting
>>>>>do not mix by posting the following: 
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>A telecommunications company and Internet service provider is expected 
>>>>>>to have online billing. The fact that this one refuses to do that is 
>>>>>>inexcusable. Especially when it charges such a high price for services.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This is a telecommunications company and Internet service provider. And 
>>>>>>yet, it can not manage online billing for it's customers? They take all 
>>>>>>the profits and give their customers the finger.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The customer feedback form on their website doesn't work (they can't 
>>>>>>even manage a website?) and the customer service number doesn't work 
>>>>>>either. So they don't want any more complaints, I guess.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>There is only one telephone company here, unless I switch to cell phone 
>>>>>>instead of land line. And the state of Arizona doesn't care how much 
>>>>>>they charge or how well they serve their customers. Are they in cahoots?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>We need a new phone company up here.
>>>>>
>>>>>Imagine that, Frontier providing substandard service.  The same company 
>>>>>that sold user info to Earthlink for thousands of users that they no 
>>>>>longer wanted.  Whether the users wanted it or not.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Actually, it's not the same company, exactly.
>>>>
>>>>Frontier bought GlobalCenter, which included the Primenet dialup users;
>>>>most of the retail dialup user base was sold to Earthlink.  Global
>>>>Crossing acquired Frontier, then sold the retail portion, including
>>>>the local telco customers and the frontiernet.net dialup customer base
>>>>to Citizens Communications, which still operates most of that under
>>>>the Frontier name.
>>>
>>>In my part of AZ we had Citizens Communications, until they changed 
>>>their name here to Frontier. So I assume it's still the same Citizens 
>>>Communications with the adopted name of the company acquired from Global 
>>>Crossing. Do I have that right? On their billing envelope it says 
>>>Frontier, and under that in small print it says, a Citizens 
>>>Communications Company.
>> 
>> 
>> That sounds right--Frontier never previously had any local telco
>> services in Arizona, and didn't have any at the time it was sold to
>> Citizens.  Frontier was previously Rochester Telecom, the
>> 100+-year-old incumbent carrier for Rochester, NY, and changed its
>> name to Frontier under the leadership of CEO Joe Clayton, who came
>> from RCA and has most recently been CEO and Chairman of Sirius
>> Satellite Radio (he just handed the CEO position to Mel Karmazin).
>> 
>> 
>>>It's a shame we can't get better than this in rural Arizona. No 
>>>competition, and no government intervention to protect consumers. I'm 
>>>still paying exorbitant long distance fees, "long distance" often being 
>>>as little as a few miles away.
>> 
>> 
>> Intra-LATA long distance calls are almost always more expensive than
>> Inter-LATA long distance calls.  Arizona has three LATAs, 666 (central
>> Arizona, including Phoenix and Flagstaff), 668 (southern Arizona
>> including Tucson), and 980 (northeastern Arizona).  See
>> http://www.robotics.net/clec/LATA_Map.html
>
> How does this map correlate with area codes? My area code is 928. With 
> some area codes in Arizona all the calls within that area code are local 
> calls. But with 928 it is determined by the prefix on the phone number.

There's only a rough correlation--LATAs are regulatory boundaries,
while area codes are for users of the phone system.  LATA stands for
Local Access and Transport Area.  State public utility commissions
regulate intra-LATA communications, while the FCC regulates inter-LATA
communications; the current rules are in the Telecommunications Act of 1996
(http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html).  When the old Ma Bell got broken up
into AT&T and the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) in 1984, the LATAs
were created and the RBOCs were permitted to carry local and toll calls only
within LATAs.  There was more competition for inter-LATA business than for
intra-LATA, leading to lower prices for the former.

> Every call where the first three of the seven digit number are different 
> is always long distance. I don't understand why they allow them to do 
> that. It seems to me that the distance doesn't warrant the amount of 
> long distance charges.

There are defined local calling areas which are smaller zones than LATAs, which
define what's free and what's a toll call.  The metro Phoenix area used to
have free calling between any two contiguous local calling areas, with tolls
for calls between noncontiguous local calling areas, but U.S. West scrapped
that at some point (late 1980s, I think) and made the entire Phoenix metro
area toll-free--even if the call crosses an area code.

I'm not sure what the regulations are regarding what's allowed to be a toll
call within a LATA, but there have certainly been some quite absurd situations,
especially in California.

>> http://www.ccmi.com/latamaps.html
>
> Thanks for the info, much appreciated.


-- 
Jim Lippard   lippard-usenet@discord.org    http://www.discord.org/
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