Subj : Re: SSH on BBSes
To   : vorlon
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Sun Apr 24 2022 08:21:00

-=> vorlon wrote to Spectre <=-

 vo> Up here in the country, calling from one side of an area to the next
 vo> was at community STD (Long distance) rates...

In the US, we had a fractured telco system after the breakup of AT&T, the 
nationwide monopoly edition. That created a market for long distance 
carriers to cover nationwide calling and regional (baby) bells for dialtone 
and local service.

For residential service, there was a local zone that was free to call; they 
were based on an arbitrary range from your phone. Outside of that, but 
inside of the area allowed to long distance traffic was "local toll" calls. 
Sometimes, they ended up being more expensive than long distance, because 
the baby bells had a monopoly.

It wasn't until long distance carriers started whispering that they could 
carry local toll traffic for their intrastate charge that things got 
interesting. Baby bell sales people, if they had a hint of long distance 
marketing that local toll area, threatened to sue me as a customer and block 
any traffic from going to other providers.

Then, things got crazy when deregulation allowed the LD providers to provide 
local toll calls and DID service - at one point I had 2 people from the 
*same* company agressively fighting for my business after their companies 
had merged.


.... Curious ideas wait for stranger times
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 * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

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