Re: Rating cell phone calls [telecom]

Robert Bonomi <bonomi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Adam H. Kerman <ahk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Robert Bonomi <bonomi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

For the fifth time, the subscriber wasn't expected to know his
rate center.

In places like Chicago with large local calling areas, I agree that
you don't care which of umpteen rate centers that are all local to
each other you were assigned to.

Chicago _doesn't_ have "large" local calling areas. the local calling area
for a Chicago land-line is one where the destination _C.O._ is 8 miles or
less from the origin _C.0._

Within that 8-mile radius, residential calls are 1 billing unit,
regardless of time, out to 15 miles, they're still a 'local' call,
but you _are_ billed for time, beyond 15 miles, it is an "Intra-LATA"
_toll_ call, until you cross. the LATA boundary, then you're looking at
"Inter-LATA" toll.

Let me embellish this, for the plan you describe was implemented
pre-divestiture, so there was no concept of LATA in tariff.

The _original_ was implemented way back then, yup. What I was talking about
was essentially current -- from dealing with the swamp for business telecom
as recently as 4 years ago.

[ snip accurate historical detail ]

You can actually have _three_ phone companies for your phone (residential or
business) -- the LEC (ILEC or CLEC), the "intra-LATA toll carrier", and the
"Inter-LATA toll carrier".

In the Chicago market, cell phones are subject to the _same_
distance-related charge scheme, but the distance is taken from the point
where the call _enters_ the PSTN. Cell carriers generally have enough
POP that they can back-haul an outgoing call on _their_ network to a
point where the PSTN ingress _is_ within "Band A" 8 mi., C.O.-to-C.O.,
of the destination -- a cost that is 'cheap enough' they can eat it on
the monthly minutes fee.

I have no idea how inter-carrier compensation worked let alone charges
to terminate calls. Cell phone subscribers didn't see those charges, for
their plans defined a very large local calling area with calls rated for
time, never distance.

The concept of competition for pre-subscribed intra-LATA toll carriers
on Illinois Bell land lines is from, what, mid '90's? At that point,
we had another change in local calling rates.

Early 90's, I think. It was in place before I was dealing with telecom mgmt.

Between 1982 and the mid '90's, calls from each rate center were subject
to one of three distance rating bands. A was 8 miles. Calls from
residential numbers were untimed, but timed from business. B was 8 to 15
miles, timed. C was over 15 miles.

There is/was a fourth band 'D', as well. I don't remember the distance
boundary for it -- it was in the 30-45 mile range. Wasn't a whole lot
of 'D' traffic unless you were calling 'clear across' the metro area., e.g.
north suburbs to far south suburbs.

I don't recall Band D. Perhaps it applied to business. It didn't apply
to residential, unless it's something I'd forgotten from the 1982-83 era.

There were also time of day charges.
Peak was calls during the middle of the business day, shoulder peak at
the beginning and end of the business day and right around lunch time,
and off peak (nights and weekends).

Calls were still rated in units for a couple of years, perhaps for
transition terminology since so many of the old rate plans had unit
charges, but this didn't make sense as new fractional unit charges for
time of day were introduced and it made rate calculation too
complicated. By 1985 or 1986, there were no more references to units.

After the mid '90's, the three calling bands were eliminated. A and B
were merged into an untimed calling area for residential, or in some
plans, a pre-paid calling area.

Sorry, that's _NOT_ true. I had a fight with AT&T last year (spring 2008)
over the matter. AT*T pay phone advertising 'unlimited-length local calls'
for the initial 50 cent coin drop. Got a 'please deposit more money' demand
after 3 minutes on a circa 10-mile call. After much discussion with multiple
operators, it turns out that those 'untimed' local calls are 'band A' (less
than 8 miles) *ONLY*. Band B (8-15) mile calls are still timed for that use.

I have a vague recollection of when pay phone rates were raised from 25
cents to 50 cents that for a few years, all local calls were 50 cents,
untimed and not rated for distance. Later, they then went back to rating
local calls to more distant locations for time and distance.

No, they never changed the labels, the bastards.

They are out of the pay phone business. A company called PTS took many
of the pay phone locations, but didn't want all of them, so numerous
places simply lost pay phones. This happened in 2008. PTS has been
pretty slow to put its own labels on pay phones.

Land-lines calling _to_ a cell-phone are a different story. Making
sure the C.O. access point for your cell phone _is_ within the 8
mi. C.O.-C.O. of the people who will be calling you *is* a significant
concern -- at least *if* you care about costs to people who call you. :)

I don't know if this is a correct statement. Cell phone providers had to
declare rate centers to be assigned prefixes for 10,000-block pools of
line numbers, but I've never read that interfacing with the LEC at each
rate center was a pre-requisite for declaring a rate center. Wouldn't one
point of interface per rate center be a needless amount of equipment to
maintain for traffic needs?

"yeah but" applies. <wry grin>
It's not so much as for interfacing with the LEC, as with the various IXCs.
For an IXC to get paid for delivering a call _to_ that rate center, the IXC
has to deliver *TO* that rate center. If they deliver it "somewhere else",
they will expect to get paid for delivering it somewhere else (i.e. that
other rate center). This is, to belabor the obvious, the _definition_ of a
rate center -- by definition, one could say. :) the wireless carrier may
be willing to 'eat' the cost of the back-haul from 'distant' interface to the
the actual rate-center locale, but the 'upstream' (presumably wireline)
carrier who has to carry the call _past_ the rate-center to reach the
interface point is -not- likely to look favorably on that 'excess' cost that
they are incurring. That 'cost' issue will rear it's ugly head, regardless of
whether the 'upstream' for the call is a IXC delivering a foreign call, or a
LEC with a presence in that rate center. Thus the LECs do have a 'dog in
that fight' (albeit a small one :) as well.

Sometimes the 'equipment cost' is a piddling amount, in the greater scheme
of things. <grin>

How does this apply given that we have no shortage of land line territory
that is wired to a switch in one location but is rated at another
location? As these are neighboring polygons, is the extra distance
simply ignored?

What about a super switch like Hinsdale, through which other switches
serving the western suburbs are routed? Wouldn't a location like this
simply be used for interface among various networks? It would be utterly
silly if every IXC attempted to co-locate in each switch associated with
the uberswitch.

Ah, telecom. The paperwork costs far more than moving the electrons around.

.

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