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From: leo@sunybcs.UUCP (Leo Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: touchtone dialing always works
Message-ID: <1706@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Dec-86 10:16:02 EST
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.1706
Posted: Mon Dec 15 10:16:02 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 05:33:33 EST
References: <750@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU>
Reply-To: leo@gort.UUCP (Leo Wilson)
Distribution: na
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 33

In article <750@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU> wa371@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU (Bernd Riechelmann) writes:
>Whenever I order telephone service installed, the phone company asks
>if I want to have Touchtone service (for an extra charge.)
>I have learned to politely refuse this feature , because Touchtone always
>works, whether ordered or not.
>To be fair, the extra charge should apply to pulse dialing instead, because
>it is much slower, tying up their dialing equipment for a longer time.

I'm pretty sure this isn't a good place for this article, but lemme put in
my two cents: The phone company seems to always want to charge people more
fo this tone service that saves them money! There has been some discussion
of it locally, but I think it's really a national (maybe inter-nat) problem.

When I reported to the phone company that I was installing my modem they asked
if I'd like to pay to save them money and when I gave the rep an earful he
said something about the $2.00 charge (per month, NOT one-shot!) being
imposed by the FCC. I don't know, I haven't the time to check, but it seems
to me that the FCC would "allow" this charge, not "impose". I am using
pulse dial still because I don't want to encourage people to charge more
for cheaper service no matter how much more convenient it is, and as far as
the services I'm supposedly missing out on, my phone has a convenient little
switch that switches between pulse & tone.

It sure would be nice if the phone company either gave some incentive for
switching to tone service rather than charging, or just made it freely
available. And it sure is stupid for anyone to pay extra for a service
that costs the supplier less!

-- 
Leo E. Wilson(leo@buffalo.csnet)	Niagara Paper Company
364 West Delavan Avenue			99 Bud-Mil Drive
Buffalo, NY 14213			Buffalo,  NY  14206
(716)883-7573				(716)856-5135 (0830-1700)