Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The Bulldog on Reverse Billing

From: "Gerald Arnone" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 20:06:38 -0600

The Telecom of act of '96 enables this practice.  Landline carriers bill the Wireless carriers at a really small rate of like $0.01 or even $0.005 cents per minute to carry your call over toll distances.

Local calls from a landline mean a 16 mile radius from the nearest switch, which is the switch in which your number is housed.  Calls placed to a destination over 16 miles but not less than say 50 miles would cost 8-16 a minute (A local toll charge.)  Funny thing is, when you call out of state it's only 5 cents with any budget LD carrier.

Personally however, I block local toll and LD with my local carrier and use a dial around code if SBC won't carry the call for free.  I then use a dial around code (101-68-68) to get a five cent rate anywhere...Toll, LD, In state, Outta State, Whatever.  My SBC bill reads: your local toll carrier is none; your long distance carrier is none.

The proliferation of cell phones has expanded our "local" call to mean "nationwide" in many cases.  Wireless carriers have the driving force behind the dissolution of the term "long distance" from the public conciousness.  It's always funny when I here someone cry, "I'm on long distance!"  Unless it's outside the US, that statement has no meaning.  Heck, NEXTEL even throws Canada in the mix!  I don't know anyone there to call but it makes me feel good knowing that I can.

With cell phones eclipsing 50% penetration in terms of population, landline carrier s are losing a boat-load of revenue in local toll charges.  Dropping reverse billing either by law or loophole serves to inflate the revenue of the landline carrier.  Ergo, I doubt any of the WSPs--or NEXTEL for that matter---is the culprit here. 

For example: if you call my cell phone (which is housed in a local carrier's switch somewhere) and that switch is more than 16 miles from the switch in which your landline is housed then "CHA-CHING" you've made a local toll charge.  More simply, if you call my cell from your desk (a landline) and my cell is more than 16 miles from you it's a toll charge.  You pay the local carrier 8-20 cents per minute instead of the wireless carrier paying the local carrier one cent, really.

Bear in mind it's not the actual devices but rather the distance between the two switchs--the one your number is housed in and the one mine is housed in.  So, you can clearly see how the area codes are irrelavent.  In most cases they are different but the can in fact be the same.  The only thing you can count on is you'll never know.  That's the beauty of it.

The local phone monopolies want their dime back.  They're going broke, ya here?  

Gerald J. Arnone
ENYO, Inc.

voice:   210.490.7790
e-mail:  [email-masked]
web:     www.enyoworkstation.com