Date: Tuesday, 3 January 1984 16:30 mst From: James J. Lippard Subject: Miscellaneous Digest V3 #1 Reply-To: {mbx >udd>Multics>Lippard>misc>misc} To: {list >udd>Multics>Lippard>misc>misc} Miscellaneous Digest Volume 3 : Issue 1 Today's topics: Billing errors and Usage Sensitive Billing A Unix Nightmare --------------------------------------------------------------------- Delivery-Date: 17 December 1982 19:44 mst Delivery-By: Lippard.Scouting at LBL-CSAM Date: Thursday, 2 December 1982 16:16 mst From: Lauren Weinstein Subject: Billing errors and Usage Sensitive Billing Redistributed-Date: 19 November 1983 09:16 mst Redistributed-From: Ron Harvey Redistributed-To: {mbx >udd>m>jjl>misc>misc} The recent article about inaccurate billing by the German P.O. reminds me of an important local issue: General Telephone of California has filed (at the PUC's *request*) a plan for the implementation of usage sensitive billing for all local calls. I believe that the plan calls for a phase-in of the plan starting sometime in '84 (it would have to be phased-in since General could not handle such billing except in their EAX offices). A similar filing by PacTel is expected shortly. As usual, the typical statements about how "fair" it is to charge for "local" calls have accompanied the proposal. I won't repeat the many arguments regarding this issue that have aired in this digest in the past. In any case, since the telcos have no intention of regularly providing itemized billing detail for local calls, it seems to me that we're opening up a whole new area of possible billing errors. Who can really keep track of how many total minutes of local calls they actually made? And think of all the bad connections, wrong numbers, and similar events that you ignore now but that you'd be getting *charged* for under a usage sensitive plan... I doubt if any sort of "limit" on the maximum local charges is being proposed for the California plan. I have grave doubts about how successfully this plan can be fought here in California, and you can be sure that the rest of the country will follow quickly if the plan is implemented here. Offhand, I can only see three ways to "deal" with such proposals (assuming you are not a fan of usage sensitive billing on local calls): 1) Fight the proposal at the PUC. (Always a thrill. I've spoken at informal PUC hearings in the past; they're always a whole bunch of fun. Sigh.) 2) Make sure that your telephone service is provided by older Step by Step offices that are *not* scheduled for early cutover to ESS/EAX. This might buy you a year or two extra of flat rate service. 3) Start planning now for local full-duplex radio networks. These could be used for both voice communications and for data communications by remote terminal users. Note that the currently existing ham "packet radio" plans would not seem to be suitable for many online data tasks, since the packet plans are essentially half-duplex message switching mechanisms. Still, they might provide a starting point for further development. All in all, not very encouraging. --Lauren-- -------------------- Delivery-Date: 3 January 1984 15:56 mst Date: Tuesday, 3 January 1984 15:55 mst From: Ron Harvey Subject: A Unix Nightmare Date: Wed, 20 Dec 83 20:23:00 PST From: A. N. Onymous Forwarded-by: David D. Levine Last night I dreamed that the Real World had adopted the "Unix Philosophy." I went to a fast-food place for lunch. When I arrived, I found that the menu had been taken down, and all the employees were standing in a line behind the counter waiting for my orders. Each of them was smaller than I remembered, there were more of them than I'd ever seen before, and they had very strange names on their nametags. I tried to give my order to the first employee, but he just said something about a "syntax error." I tried another employee with no more luck. He just said "Eh?" no matter what I told him. I had similar experiences with several other employees. (One employee named "ed" didn't even say "Eh?," he just looked at me quizzically.) Disgusted, I sought out the manager (at least it said "man" on his nametag) and asked him for help. He told me that he didn't know anything about "help," and to try somebody else with a strange name for more information. The fellow with the strange name didn't know anything about "help" either, but when I told him I just wanted to order he directed me to a girl named "oe," who handled order entry. (He also told me about several other employees I couldn't care less about, but at least I got the information I needed.) I went to "oe" and when I got to the front of the queue she just smiled at me. I smiled back. She just smiled some more. Eventually I realized that I shouldn't expect a prompt. I asked for a hamburger. She didn't respond, but since she didn't say "Eh?" I knew I'd done something right. We smiled at each other for a little while longer, then I told her I was finished with my order. She directed me to the cashier, where I paid and received my order. The hamburger was fine, but it was completely bare... not even a bun. I went back to "oe" to complain, but she just said "Eh?" a lot. I went to the manager and asked him about "oe." The manager explained to me that "oe" had thousands of options, but if I wanted any of them I'd have to know in advance what they were and exactly how to ask for them. He also told me about "vi," who would write down my order and let me correct it before I was done, and how to hand the written order to "oe". "vi" had a nasty habit of writing down my corrections unless I told her that I was about to make a correction, but it was still easier than dealing directly with "oe." By this time I was really hungry, but I didn't have enough money to order again, so I figured out how to redirect somebody else's order to my plate. Security was pretty lax at that place. As I was walking out the door, I was snagged in a giant Net. I screamed and woke up. -- David D. Levine (...decvax!tektronix!tekecs!davidl) [UUCP] (...tekecs!davidl.tektronix@rand-relay) [ARPA] -------------------- End of Miscellaneous Digest ***************************