Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pro-carolina.cts.com!delton
From: delton@pro-carolina.cts.com (Don Elton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: 1-900 BBS
Message-ID: <8908111748.AA01506@trout.nosc.mil>
Date: 11 Aug 89 02:34:17 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 35

I hadn't heard of the idea before so I called up AT&T to find out what the
costs would be in setting up a 900 access BBS system.  900 access for those of
you in the hills is sorta like 800 toll-free service except that the caller
gets billed, normally in minute increments and the larger portion of the bill
goes to the recipient.  TV is full of ads for silly dating services and talk
to the rapper services on these lines and you'd have to figure they wouldn't
be advertising this much if there wasn't money to be made on them.  Here are
the rates to have a 900 number:

$1200 installation fee (flip a couple of switches I imagine)
$1000 per month
$0.30 per minute collection fee

You get to charge up to $2 per minute for the first minute and $1 per minute
for subsequent minutes.  This would mean it would take several hundred minutes
per month to pay the monthly costs of the service and anything beyond that
would be profit I guess.

Would anybody call such a BBS (would have to be single-line I suppose)?  What
would such a BBS have to offer to get people interested in paying by the
minute like this billed on your phone bill?  Note that the feeds to the user
are set by the owner and could of course be less than the $2/$1 per minute
stated depending on the value of the service provided and the demand for that
service.

This could be an interesting angle for someone with time to pursue it.

Comments?

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