While looking over my voluminous phone bill the other day, I realized something - I was paying AT&T about $20-25 a month (I have two lines) for NOTHING! I make, maybe 2 long-distance calls every, oh, I don’t know, FIVE YEARS!! There’s a minumum charge charge (if you make calls totalling over that amount, they charge you the actual amount), a charge you MUST pay that helps non-profit orgs pay their bill (ahhh, nothing makes me feel better than forced charity), and a fee that AT&T has to pay your local phone co. to use its lines. So, I called the local company and was told that I didn’t have to have a designated long distance company. I told them and later AT&T to get the heel out of my phone bill.
So, what if I want to make a long distance call? Easy - phone cards.
I know, I’ll end up paying 15-30 cents per minute, BUT if it takes me 1 year (the usual time limit on cards) to use the minutes then it will only have cost me the amount of the card ($10-30).
OTOH, I will have paid AT&T over $120 for the same priviledge.
This (and the favorite comics thread) remind me of a Bloom County strip that came out right after AT&T was broken up - Milo (I think)refers to the AT&T logo as the Death Star. How right he was.