Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA01789; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:56:05 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:56:05 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199702171356.IAA01789@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #44 TELECOM Digest Mon, 17 Feb 97 08:56:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 44 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Slammed! (Tad Cook) Ameritech Discriminates Against Michigan U.P. Residents (Jack Decker) At What Point Do I File a Lawsuit on my LEC? (Billy Newsom) World Reaches Multibillion-Dollar Telecoms Pact (Tad Cook) Top of the World: Cellphone Penetration (Kimmo Ketolainen) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu. 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Do this ocasionally, and you will know if your carrier has been changed. This article mentions calling the Florida PUC, but of course you would only do that if you were in Florida. Tad Cook, tad@ssc.com) Long-Distance Telephone Carriers Slam Customers By Patricia Horn, Sun-Sentinel, South Florida Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Feb. 17--Slammed. Every year, millions of people switch their long distance telephone carriers in efforts to save money or improve service. Every year, thousands of Floridians and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans have their long-distance telephone carrier switched without their knowlege. They've been slammed. The typical result: higher rates, frustration, a lot of phone calls to correct the problem, and sometimes even a bad credit rating. Nikki Townsend was slammed twice last year by Heartline Communications. "I don't know where they came up with my number," she said. By her calculation, Heartline charged her twice as much as did her chosen long distance company, Sprint. "I never approved it either time," she said. Townsend ran into the problem every slammed customer does: You don't know a company has taken over your long distance service until that company's first bill arrives. And, unless you read your bill closely every month, you may not know it even then. Townsend did. A friend directed her to the Florida Public Service Commission. There she learned an irony of slamming: Although she hadn't ordered that company's service, she still had to pay the bill. She did, however, get a refund for the difference between Sprint's charges and Heartline's. Houston-based Total World Telecommunications bought Heartline over a year ago. Vice-president Ed Kennard acknowledged that some of Heartline's customers were indeed slammed. "We've spent over $4 million to provide the cost of switching these people back, of settling fines in your state and other states, and are totally against the business of slamming," he said. For consumers, slamming is insidious and nearly unpreventable. You might sign a sweepstakes form for a new Mustang or a Hawaii vacation at the mall. If you didn't read the fine print -- and sometimes even if you did -- you wouldn't know that signature also will change your phone service. Laura Griffith's daughter and boyfriend filled out a sweepstakes form while shopping. That form changed the Cooper City family's phone service to Home Owners Long Distance Inc. -- and higher rates. "That something as erroneous as this could change your long distance service is absurb," Laura Griffith said. You might agree to receive information from a phone company over the phone. That "yes" can change your long distance service -- even though a switch such as that is illegal. You might think you are talking to AT&T, agree to a discount plan, and discover that it's not AT&T and it's not a discount plan. You might do nothing, and still get your phone service changed. That's what happened to Diana Pirich of Fort Lauderdale. She was switched from AT&T to Integrated TeleServices Inc. "I had never heard of them," she said, until after her first bill from Integrated arrived. By her figuring, since Integrated spelled her name incorrectly, just as on a mailing list she's on, that's where the company must have acquired her name. No one knows how big a problem slamming is. But anecdotal evidence indicates it is growing -- and has been since the late 1980s. In Florida, complaints about slamming to the Florida Public Service Commission have risen from 194 in 1990 to 2,393 last year. "That's only the tip of the iceberg," said Nancy Pruitt, the commission's point person for slamming complaints. She estimates the commission might hear from only 10 percent of those affected. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates interstate phone service, doesn't track slamming. But slamming complaints to the FCC have nearly quadrupled since 1994. The closest reference to an actual count came in a "Wall Street Journal" article last year. It said the seven Baby Bells, which bill for most long distance carriers, received more than 100,000 complaints about slamming in the first six months of 1995. Slamming originated in the early long distance marketing wars between MCI and AT&T in the late 1980s, according to John Muleta, chief of the FCC's enforcement division for common carriers. He said AT&T coined the word "slamming" during those battles. In the early and mid-1990s, after the price of wholesale long-distance rates dropped, hundreds of companies entered the market and began to compete for more consumers' long distance dollars. From that intense competition came new marketing techniques -- such as sweepstakes and door-to-door sales, Muleta said. Some are illegal. The FCC, for example, is investigating forged signatures on letters of agency, the actual document that changes your long distance service. The Florida Public Service Commission is investigating sweepstakes contests that never state -- or say only in vague fine print -- that people who enter have signed up to switch phone service. "There has been such a proliferation of long distance companies, but they are having to divide up the same pie in 700 ways instead of three," Pruitt said. Now, with further deregulation in the industry, slamming is expected to get worse. Today, you can chose different phone companies for two different types of phone service: long distance and local toll. (A local toll call is a call from, say, Fort Lauderdale to Delray Beach.) Competition will also increase in local service over the next few years, for calls now exclusively carried by BellSouth. Here are examples of the biggest cases last year at the Florida Public Service Commission: The commission received more than 400 complaints of slamming by Phone Calls Inc. Now the commission can't find the company. Phone Calls Inc. used sweepstakes promotions, in one case for a Mustang convertible. By filling out the card, the signer unwittingly authorized the company to change their phone service to Phone Calls, Pruitt said. The only hint, in small print on the contest entry form, pertained to fees that BellSouth would charge for the switch, which would be reimbursed. In 1996, the commission received nearly 300 complaints about slamming by Heartline. Heartline also used car and vacation trip sweepstakes promotions, as well as charity appeals. One sweepstakes featured a Hawaii vacation, $15,000 cash, a red Mustang and the appeal "Help Childhelp USA end child abuse." The fine print underneath the entry forms: "Submission of official form can result in a change of long distance service." Heartline's buyer, Total World Communications, agreed to pay the commission a $50,000 settlement, refund customers for its higher rates and not to use sweepstakes contests in Florida. The commission received 176 complaints on Integrated TeleServices Inc., 45 on Network Utilization Services and 77 on Discount Network Services. With all three companies, consumers have told the commission they thought they were talking to AT&T. Discount's telemarketers refer to the company as "AT&T Bill Management Discount Network Services." And, according to a tape of a conversation, when one person asked the telemarketer "You are not changing my service, are you?" the telemarketer answered "You remain with AT&T 100 percent, just as you are now." Discount Network Services has since agreed to stop making any reference to AT&T in its telemarketing scripts. So what can consumers do? Be incredibly savvy. Read everything. Trust no one. Pruitt says she cautions people to think twice before talking to telemarketers or filling out any sweepstakes offers at all. "When these people say they are calling from AT&T what are you supposed to say, `No, I don't think you are really AT&T?"' she said. Although the FCC and the Public Service Commission say they are trying to tighten the rules around slamming, there still isn't that much protection for consumer. The Public Service Commission has been fining companies since 1989. It tried to put one company, Cherry Communications, out of business in Florida, but the Florida Supreme Court sent the decision back to the commission on a technicality. The commission decided not to pursue the case and agreed to settle for $100,000 with guarantees that Cherry would abide by anti-slamming rules. The cost of that legal battle in time, resources and staff sobered the commission, enforcement chief Alan Taylor said. "Basically what we have is an industry that I guess is thriving on its ability to easily change someone's long distance service and nobody wants to implement any sort of controls," he said. The FCC says it has stepped up its actions. In late 1994 it began to fine companies, including a levy of $500,000 against Cherry Communications. The FCC's Muleta says his agency is also considering allowing consumers to not pay the bills to companies that slammed them. Consumer advocate Ken McEldowney San Francisco-based Consumer Action says that, plus a stiff fine, is the solution to slamming. "It's the only thing that will stop the fraud," he said. There are steps consumers can take to help prevent slamming, but nothing guarantees it won't happen. Not even asking BellSouth to freeze your accounts with your current long distance service. Townsend, for example, said she asked BellSouth for a freeze and still got slammed a second time by Heartline. The bottom line, said the FCC's Muleta, is for consumers to be vigilant. -- Don't talk to telemarketers, or be very cautious if you do. Just saying yes to getting information from a long distance company can be misconstrued as a "yes, change my phone service." -- Don't fill out sweepstakes forms. If you do, read carefully. Buried in the small print might be an agreement to switch phone service. -- Ask BellSouth to freeze your phone service with your current carrier. -- Read the fine print in everything, including any checks, offers for calling cards, or post cards you can return requesting more information. -- Sign up for "No Sales Calls" with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs. Send $10 with your complete name, mailing address, and residential telephone number with area code and a note saying "please sign me up on no sales calls list" to: Florida Department of Agriculture, Second Floor, Division of Consumer Services, Tallahasse, FL 32399-0800. You will get on next quarter's list. -- If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If you have been slammed: -- Call the Florida Public Service Commission's hotline at 1-800-342-3552. The commission can help negotiate this process for telephone service in the state, and your call can help them track companies that slam. -- Call your local telephone company. In this area, that's BellSouth. Tell the company that you did not order service from the new company, that you want to be reconnected to your previous long distance company, and that you want any charges for switching companies removed from your telephone bill. -- Call the company that slammed you. Tell them you will only pay the calls at the rate your original company would have charged. You are still liable for paying those calls at that rate. -- Call the long distance company you were switched from and ask to be reconnected at no charge. Make sure to re-establish any calling plans or calling cards you may have had. -- If this does not get resolved to your satisfaction, or just to file a complaint, you can also call the Federal Communications Commission at 1-888-CALL FCC. Source: Florida Public Service Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Tele-Consumer Hotline. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Although this article states that AT&T coined the term 'slamming' the fact is that AT&T started using it after a few readers of this Digest discussed the problem when it first became apparent several years ago, and we talked in this Digest about a name or term to describe it. The term 'slamming' as it is now used commonly to describe unauthorized switching of long distance carriers began here. Do any long-time readers from back in the 1980's recall it ever being used before seeing it in this Digest? I think AT&T took it for use after reading about it here. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 19:02:10 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: Ameritech Discriminates Against Michigan U.P. Residents I own a C-band satellite dish and almost every week I listen to a program for dish owners called "Friday Night Live" (for more info on this see the web page at http://ttn.nai.net/). During the second half of this program they take calls from listeners. During the past few weeks they have been plagued by calls from a prank caller, and Gary Bourgois (the show's host) mentioned that Caller ID is not available in Marquette, Michigan (from whence the show originates -- specifically the 906-228 exchange). Apparently the problem is not that the switch isn't capable of doing Caller ID ... it's simply that Ameritech, for whatever reason, doesn't feel that it's necessary to offer Caller ID in that part of the Upper Peninsula. In the past, I would have said "write to the Michigan Public Service Commission." But unfortunately, the last rewrite of the Michigan Telecommunications Act has basically gutted the power of the M.P.S.C., especially where "enhanced services" (a.k.a. "custom calling features") are concerned. Put simply, the way the law is now, if Ameritech decides they want to deny a particular service to customers in a given exchange, they may do so. Someone else who was concerned about the inability to subscribe to Caller ID in Marquette actually did write to the M.P.S.C., and received a letter back saying pretty much what I've stated above. I didn't record the show so I can't quote it verbatim, but if anyone is really interested, the show should be available online this week (in RealAudio format) at http://ttn.nai.net/fnl.ram (you want the show with a copyright date of February 14, 1997, and the part where he talks about Ameritech should be in the last 15 minutes of the second hour or thereabouts). It would be one thing if the central office switch were not capable of Caller ID, but since that is not the case, one has to wonder what Ameritech's reason might be for denying this service to those customers that want it. Anyway, here is a case where removing M.P.S.C. oversight has put some Ameritech customers at a disadvantage. Another fine mess our legislators have gotten us into! On a related note, Michigan residents that wish to sign up for the MI-Telecom e-mail mailing list can do so very easily by going to the Web page at http://www.MailList.Net/mi-telecom.html. You don't even have to send an e-mail message, just fill out the short form on that page and that's all there is to it. For more information on the MI-Telecom mailing list, see the page at http://www.utilitywatch.org/maillist.html (which also gives instructions for subscribing via the usual method of sending an e-mail message). Jack ------------------------------ From: Billy Newsom Subject: At What Point do I File a Lawsuit on my LEC? Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 22:15:21 -0700 Organization: http://users.why.net/uruiamme/ Reply-To: William.Newsom@Columbia.net "Billy. It was our fault. You're going to have to stop making calls on those lines until we figure out how to make it work." That's what my Southwestern Bell rep told me Friday. This was in response to a problem we had with a new service SWBT offered to customers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It's called "Local Plus." SWBT has advertised this service with full-page newspaper ads, television commercials, radio commercials, direct mailings, and flyers in billing statements. It is being offered to residential and commercial customers. Apparently, SWBT is unable to provide this service to us, even though we were told they could. It all comes down to the fact that we use ISDN, and they can't figure out how to make it work. That's why we were charged about $2500 for calls that should have been free. I am the telecommunications manager for a call center in the mid-cities of D/FW. Our long distance call volume is high enough that we use direct AT&T lines. Local calls go through SWBT T-1s and the long distance calls bypass the LEC and are routed to the AT&T T-1s. But in December, my SWBT account manager told me about a plan called "Local Plus," which extends our local calling area to about thirteen counties centered in the D/FW metro area. "Wow, this will save us $10,000 per year on long distance calling! Hook us up." Last week, we received our SWBT telephone bill. At first glance, it was correct. Except for the fact that we had been charged for 4,500 calls made to the thirteen counties surrounding D/FW. These should have been free. After calling my SWBT rep, I got a visit from him. He tried to make it look like my fault. He's really a great guy. I convinced him that I had done my outbound routing correctly. So SWBT was going to make sure everything was done correctly at the central office. It wasn't. Here's the sob story I got: My company was only the second customer using ISDN PRI that had requested "Local Plus" service. The other customer had had the same problems we had had. Southwestern Bell has no clue how to make Local Plus work with a Primary Rate Interface. It will take at least ten business days for the engineers to figure it out. We will be reimbursed for the calls we made for the last month (100% of them were in the Local Plus calling area, due to my superior call-routing) plus the $300 per month it cost us for the Local Plus service. But until SWBT hashes it out, we have to pay for calls using long distance rates. We have to wait until SWBT makes the service available. Here's the bottom line that I may inform the Public Utilities Commission. Southwestern Bell offered a service to everyone, including my company. Now, we are told that the service is not available at this time even though we were sorta allowed to use it for a month. Is this a false advertising situation? Is this an issue for the Texas PUC? Is this a class-action lawsuit issue (for all of the ISDN-PRI customers in D/FW)? Could we sue SWBT for the AT&T charges we will incur in the interim between now and whenever SWBT says they're ready for re-installing the Local Plus service? I truly feel sorry for my SWBT rep and the person who performed the installation mainly because they thought that everything was A-OK. They are finding out that a service is unavailable months after the fact. I'm afraid this is another issue with the marketing guys promoting that which is technically impossible. Reminds me of AOL and a much larger class-action suit. In addition, I never received official operating instructions or even much more than a map of D/FW and a list of cities. I probably spent a couple days investigating and configuring my PBX to use the Local Plus service, and now I look pretty stupid to my boss. Does anyone know what the PUC can do in this kind of situation? I'm not sure if this is even major enough to bother with. Our company got free calls for a month because of it. But that savings will quickly evaporate in "ten business days" while we start paying AT&T for long distance. I'm not going to hold my breath. Billy Newsom :^p uruiamme@why.net My site: Motherboard HomeWorld (a.k.a. **DANGER**) http://users.why.net/uruiamme/ nO nEED tO yELL! See also my new web page: How to Build a PC ------------------------------ Subject: World Reaches Multibillion-Dollar Telecoms Pact Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 14:08:36 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) World reaches multibillion-dollar telecoms pact By CAROLYN HENSON Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) -- Negotiators from 67 countries clinched a landmark deal Saturday to open their telecommunications markets to foreign competition, declaring it would save money for telephone customers around the world. The agreement -- which gives the United States a chance to expand in one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy -- was reached at the World Trade Organization only hours before a midnight deadline. In Washington, President Clinton said the agreement will bring "clear benefits to American workers, businesses and consumers alike -- new jobs, new markets and lower prices." Acting U.S. Trade Representative Charlene estimated that the cost of international phone calls to U.S. consumers would drop over the next several years by 80 percent -- from $1 a minute on average to 20 cents a minute. The accord will liberalize trade in telephone services, fax and data transmission. The countries taking part in the agreement account for more than 90 percent of the $750 billion global telecommunications industry. The United States already accounts about a third of that market, with the European Union holding another third and Japan about 15 percent. "This is a great success," said the deputy U.S. trade representative, Jeffrey Lang. "Everyone is going to benefit." "We have had competitive markets for 15 years and our companies are lean and ready to go and looking for new market opportunities," Lang said. "For the rest of the world, telephone rates are going to go down because there's going to be more competition." In Washington, executives from America's giant telecommunications companies appeared at a news conference with Barshefsky to praise the deal. Telecommunications are one of the most vital sectors of the world economy, but trade barriers have prevented technological gains from being passed on to the consumer. The deal would phase out monopolies and restrictions on competition that have allowed telephone companies to overcharge for calls and given them little incentive to improve services. The developing world would also gain from improved telecommunications technology, said the director general of the World Trade Organization, Renato Ruggiero. "This is good news for firms, which spend more on telecommunications services than they do on oil. It is also good news for families that in today's world are so often separated by physical distance," he said. He said the freeing up of the market could mean global savings of $1 trillion over the next decade or so. Washington had been the final holdout in the negotiations. The Clinton administration, under pressure from Congress to drive a hard bargain, had insisted up to the last moment that other countries improve their offers. Some Congress members were unhappy at Canada's 46.7 percent cap on foreign ownership while the United States itself is offering 100 percent, up from 20 percent. Mexican and South Korean offers also restrict foreign ownership to under 50 percent and Japan has restricted foreign participation in its main two telephone companies to 20 percent. Though South Korea and Mexico sweetened their offers somewhat, Japan and Canada refused to budge. Other countries were relieved to get the United States on board. The United States walked away from the negotiations last April in protest at what it said were insufficient offers. "We're glad the United States has finally decided to join the avant garde. We welcome the United States as an active participant," said the European Union trade chief, Sir Leon Brittan. "I'm very happy. It's a good result," said Canadian trade ambassador John Weekes as he emerged from the meeting at the World Trade Organization, which sponsored the deal. The countries have until Nov. 30 to ratify the agreement, which would take effect Jan. 1, 1998. ------------------------------ From: kk@iki.fi (Kimmo Ketolainen) Subject: Top of the World: Cellphone Penetration Date: 17 Feb 1997 05:14:58 +0200 Organization: Weyland-Yutani Corporation According to Financial Times publication Mobile Communications, the cellphone penetration rate is getting closer to one third of the population in three countries in Europe. The December 1 issue said 28.09% of Finns had a cellphone, so did 27.81% of Swedes and 26.75% of the Norwegians. The publication also lists Iceland, Great Britain, Luxembourg and Italy to have more than ten cellphones per one hundred people. Behind these countries came Germany with seven and France with four. In other continents, Australia was also near 28%, United States at 17% and Japan near with 15 %. Kimmo Ketolainen * kk@sci.fi * http://iki.fi/kk * Tel. Earth +358 40 55555 08 Studentville 84A, 20540 Turku, Finland * irc:Kimble#kk * Fax +358 22 50 22 40 SunOS weyland-yutani0 5.5 Generic_103093-03 sun4d sparc SUNW,SPARCserver-1000 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #44 *****************************