Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
From owner-nanog@merit.edu Thu Aug 18 01:47:56 2005 Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:44:59 -0400 From: "Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com> Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
On 8/17/2005 10:04 PM, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
A new law that's apparently the first in the nation threatens to penalize Internet service providers that fail to warn users that some dial-up numbers can ring up enormous long-distance phone bills even though they appear local.
aka, make ISPs liable for other people's fraud. What's the thinking here, anybody know?
*NOT* "other people's fraud". Just when you have 'intra-LATA' toll charges for some numbers within a single area-code. If the user is on one side of the area-code, and the provider's POP is on the far side of it, you can have a what appears to be a 'local' number, that does incur non-trivial per-minute charges. Without knowing _where_ a particular prefix is, you can't tell whether there will be toll charges for that call, or not, from any given call origin. Of course, this is true for *every* call in such an area -- if the new law is actually singling out ISPs (and ISPs -only-), I expect it could be successfully challenged as 'discriminatory'. The excessive 'local toll charge' situation is most visible on calls to ISPs, because those calls tend to be somewhat lengthy -- and frequent -- thus, the 'unexpected' charges can reach significant dollar value before the phone customer gets their first bill. Life gets _really_ messy, when the ISP gets phone service from a CLEC, because there is "no telling" _where_ the ILEC uses as the 'rate point' for handing the calls off to that CLEC. And the CLEC bills their customers based on distance from the caller's location to that hand-off point. The ISP equipment may be across the street from the caller, but the ILEC-CLEC hand-off is on the far edge of the area-code. and the 'local toll charges' are applied. The CLEC can't tell you (and thus, neither can the ISP) which prefixes are a 'non-toll' call to their numbeers. And trying to get an authoritative answer from the ILEC about what charges are to the CLEC's prefix can be _very_ difficult.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Bonomi Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 7:43 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
From owner-nanog@merit.edu Thu Aug 18 01:47:56 2005 Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:44:59 -0400 From: "Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com> Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
On 8/17/2005 10:04 PM, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) wrote:
A new law that's apparently the first in the nation threatens to penalize Internet service providers that fail to warn users that some dial-up numbers can ring up enormous long-distance phone bills even though they appear local.
aka, make ISPs liable for other people's fraud. What's the thinking here, anybody know?
*NOT* "other people's fraud". Just when you have 'intra-LATA' toll charges for some numbers within a single area-code. If the user is on one side of the area-code, and the provider's POP is on the far side of it, you can have a what appears to be a 'local' number, that does incur non-trivial per-minute charges. Without knowing _where_ a particular prefix is, you can't tell whether there will be toll charges for that call, or not, from any given call origin.
Pardon my ignorance, but don't most phone companies require 10 digit dialing for long-distance. We have similar situations in the rural area I live in, but the customers know if they dial more than 7 digits, it WILL be long distance.
Of course, this is true for *every* call in such an area -- if the new law is actually singling out ISPs (and ISPs -only-), I expect it could be successfully challenged as 'discriminatory'.
Agreed. It's silly to single out ISPs on this one.
The excessive 'local toll charge' situation is most visible on calls to ISPs, because those calls tend to be somewhat lengthy -- and frequent -- thus, the 'unexpected' charges can reach significant dollar value before the phone customer gets their first bill.
Agreed, but is this really the ISPs fault, or is it the customer's fault.
Life gets _really_ messy, when the ISP gets phone service from a CLEC, because there is "no telling" _where_ the ILEC uses as the 'rate point' for handing the calls off to that CLEC. And the CLEC bills their customers based on distance from the caller's location to that hand-off point. The ISP equipment may be across the street from the caller, but the ILEC-CLEC hand-off is on the far edge of the area-code. and the 'local toll charges' are applied.
The CLEC can't tell you (and thus, neither can the ISP) which prefixes are a 'non-toll' call to their numbeers. And trying to get an authoritative answer from the ILEC about what charges are to the CLEC's prefix can be _very_ difficult.
I have never come across this, but it may be more of a metro area thing. :-) I think in the end this is a typical government attempt to solve a non-problem. They can easily do public service announcements to inform their constituents, or ask the phone companies to deal with it as it really is a problem for them. It is a charge on the hone bill, right. :-) - Brian J.
Pardon my ignorance, but don't most phone companies require 10 digit dialing for long-distance. We have similar situations in the rural area I live in, but the customers know if they dial more than 7 digits, it WILL be long distance.
No. If you are in an overlay area, such as MD, parts of NoVA and many other states; then 10D is required for ALL local calls MD does have 11D required for toll; but many states do not, inc. Virginia. (This topic is the "vs vs emacs" of the telco world, btw. I'm strongly in the 11D for toll camp, but others I respect [Hi Mr. Mayor] feel it's a PITA to dial 10D on every call..) This may have been inspired by ISP-set POP #'s. In a case I know of; a WebTV user did the setup via the 800#; and got told "867-5309" was local and it was automagically loaded into the WebTV box. 90 days later, the phone bill arrived... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of David Lesher Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 8:31 AM To: nanog list Subject: Re: New N.Y. Law Targets Hidden Net LD Tolls
Pardon my ignorance, but don't most phone companies require
10 digit dialing
for long-distance. We have similar situations in the rural area I live in, but the customers know if they dial more than 7 digits, it WILL be long distance.
No.
If you are in an overlay area, such as MD, parts of NoVA and many other states; then 10D is required for ALL local calls
MD does have 11D required for toll; but many states do not, inc. Virginia.
(This topic is the "vs vs emacs" of the telco world, btw. I'm strongly in the 11D for toll camp, but others I respect [Hi Mr. Mayor] feel it's a PITA to dial 10D on every call..)
This may have been inspired by ISP-set POP #'s. In a case I know of; a WebTV user did the setup via the 800#; and got told "867-5309" was local and it was automagically loaded into the WebTV box.
90 days later, the phone bill arrived...
Now on this one, throw the book at WebTV. If you are gonna make the settings for the customer, you are responsibe for the results of your actions. But, of course, I'm sure they have a disclaimer saying that it is your responsibility to insure the number selected is a local call. - Brian J
On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Brian Johnson wrote:
Pardon my ignorance, but don't most phone companies require 10 digit dialing for long-distance.
So I signed up for a trial of a spiffy service from RingCentral, who insist that they have numbers local to Victorville/Apple Valley, California, USA. They assigned me 760-301-<mumble>. 301 is Ridgecrest, an hour north of Victorville on US 395, and a toll call. But Verizon still allows 7D dialing for toll calls in this part of the country. (RingCentral later told me "we just allow you to pick a city to determine which area code your number will be in" - no, morons, you advertise local numbers in Victorville, and you should just allow people to pick an area code without listing cities in that area code.) And there are plenty of spots around the US where 10D dialing is required even for local, non-toll calls. -- Steve Sobol, Professional Geek 888-480-4638 PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Company website: http://JustThe.net/ Personal blog, resume, portfolio: http://SteveSobol.com/ E: sjsobol@JustThe.net Snail: 22674 Motnocab Road, Apple Valley, CA 92307
On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 07:42:53AM -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:
The CLEC can't tell you (and thus, neither can the ISP) which prefixes are a 'non-toll' call to their numbeers. And trying to get an authoritative answer from the ILEC about what charges are to the CLEC's prefix can be _very_ difficult.
In some cases it can be easy, once you're online (paying high rates of course ;-) you can visit (in some cases) the telco websites: (eg: input 734-764, then 214-413) http://localcalling.sbc.com/LCA/lca_input.jsp The fun part is, it works for most of the states, except that most strange/obscure/messed up one, Texas. There's also: (734-429) http://www22.verizon.com/CallingAreas/LocalCallFinder/LocalCallFinderSAS.htm - Jared -- Jared Mauch | pgp key available via finger from jared@puck.nether.net clue++; | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/ My statements are only mine.
Thus spake "Robert Bonomi" <bonomi@mail.r-bonomi.com>
*NOT* "other people's fraud". Just when you have 'intra-LATA' toll charges for some numbers within a single area-code. If the user is on one side of the area-code, and the provider's POP is on the far side of it, you can have a what appears to be a 'local' number, that does incur non-trivial per-minute charges. Without knowing _where_ a particular prefix is, you can't tell whether there will be toll charges for that call, or not, from any given call origin.
That's why some states (e.g. Texas) require that all toll calls be dialed as 1+ _regardless of area code_, and local calls cannot be dialed as 1+. If you dial a number wrong, you get a message telling you how to do it properly (and why). Sure, this is a little confusing for out-of-towners, but it makes it impossible to accidentally dial a toll call when you think you're dialing a local one, which is the reason the PUC decreed it several decades ago. Apparently NY is just now catching up with rednecks from the 70s. S Stephen Sprunk "Those people who think they know everything CCIE #3723 are a great annoyance to those of us who do." K5SSS --Isaac Asimov
participants (6)
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Brian Johnson -
David Lesher -
Jared Mauch -
Robert Bonomi -
Stephen Sprunk -
Steven J. Sobol