From: jvilhube@diana.cair.du.edu (Jan Vilhuber)
Newsgroups: nyx.misc,du.general,co.general
Subject: Re: FYI - USWest wasting our money again
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:23:57 GMT
Distribution: co
Organization: University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

In article <1992Sep12.143433.13251@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> aburt@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (Andrew Burt) writes:
>I've*seen*so*far it looks really retarded.  I dearly hope someone can
>convince me this is superior to any existing products, including superior
>to services found on the internet, the internet itself, existing pay
>services like Tragedy and Compu$erve, "standards" like X or ms-windows
>for graphics, etc.  If you show me a better mousetrap I'll buy it.
>(If you don't overcharge -- price/performance is still an issue.)
>
iAndrew.. would you mind posting the letter I wrote you earlier? That way
I won't have to reiiterate myself.

>Agreed in part -- but (a) since it is a subsidiary of what used to be
>ONLY "the phone company" most people feel it is an outgrowth of "the
>phone company", and indeed this is true; (b) they are covered by basically
>the same body of regulations; (c) the money all goes into the same
>shareholder and executive pockets as USWest Comm's profits do; (d) because
>of (a) through (c) they can wield the name like a club, and people pay
>attention.
>
(a) is correct (if obvious and irrelevant).
(b) somewhat true. COMM is regulated and the rest is un-regulated.
(c) is totally wrong. Comms profits and Comms profits. The seperate entities
of US WEST ARE seperate entities. We get none of COMM's goodies.
(d) takes care of itself.

>Also (e) [where I now get on uncertain ground] they have direct
>access to the phone number databases needed to implement a directory
>service, whereas an outside company would have to (I presume) pay for
>this information, and somehow pay to keep it updated.  I.e., I
>
(e) is wrong. Because of the MFJ and Judge Green, and all that, those
listings have to be offered to everybody at the same rate. They can't
give it us for free (since we are de facto a seperate company) and sell
it to others for free. I have the technical term for that at home. Can't
remember it now. So DIRECT has to BUY the listing just like anybody else.
As Far as the competition goes, DIRECT has just had more experience doing
what they do best (YP), but after all this time I don't see why the 
competition is still so pitiful.

As for DIRECT having started off with the complete database and doesn't need to
do much to keep it running, remember that everybody else has the same
imformation, and has had it for several years now. How many entries from 
the original database are still in there? They just had th programs
to process the data, so all anybody else has to do is write their own program
to handle the data, and it appears that anybody else would do a better job
anyway, right? Where are they?! It's not like they haven't had the time..
 
>Tricky subject (if I'm correct) since:  We can't throw out the existing
>uswestYP and say "ok, start over from scratch" since we'd be without
>YP for a few years.  But, by it's mere continued existence, it prevents
>successful competition.
>
Not. Just coz they have the experience we don't activale (in fact can't)
drown out competition.

>Ah, too many embarrassing (to USW) stories for me to tell.  I've done
>quite a bit of consulting with many different USW units, so I feel
>pretty secure in saying "it's messed up". :-)
>
No more no less than any other company.

>Or you could help by educating us, or at least point us to some on-line
>info about this.
>
I would if I could, but I neither have the time to type it all in, nor 
do I know of any *on-line* info. A letter to congress or Judge Green would
give you info (I;m sure they are more than happy to mail it),
or I suggest the nearest library.

>Well, it all started with a newspaper and TV account of it.  This mere
>and minor reporting started this avalanche -- so what folks SAW of it
>was enough to get people strongly up in arms against it.  I know the
>media isn't always the most accurate, but there must be some grains of
>truth in what was said/shown, and we're all saying we don't like ANY of
>what we saw.
>
And when did we start trusting the newspapers to give an accurate account
of what's going on in the technical world?!

>If it's really awesome, then entity X has done a negligently bad job
>of presenting it! :-)
>
THAT I can't argue. That may well be.

-- 
 Jan Vilhuber            | Internet: jvilhube@du.edu or jvilhube@[130.253.1.4]
 (The skydivin' Bass)      | Bitnet  : jvilhube@DUCAIR
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Newsgroups: co.general