Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 11:07:27 +0200
From: Christopher Lott AGSE <lott@informatik.uni-kl.de>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Overseas Calling Cards  
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 622, Message 4 of 4

In article <telecom12.615.2@eecs.nwu.edu> is written:

> MCI says they will charge only US$2 for a call to a US 800 number,

According to the MCI rep in the US (I called them from Germany), calls
to 800 numbers cost the same as calls to non-800 numbers.  The rep
made no mention of whether the 800 number had to be an MCI number or
not.

While we're on the subject of USA direct services and costs, I hope
some find the following info interesting.  I gathered it partly from
the Digest and partly from calling the companies involved.

Brief summary: for calls to US from Germany of 15 minutes or less,
it's cheaper to use the German phone company (Telekom) than ATT or
MCI.  But if you have MCI's Friends & Family service, MCI-FF is
cheaper already after five minutes.  This assumes that you're calling
from a private phone or pay phone, not from a hotel or other ripoff
setup.  I don't know if the USA Direct rates vary from country to
country, so these figures might be of limited use.

I hope that MCI & ATT wake up and reduce the costs of their USA-direct
services for people calling from Germany.  ATT is simply not
competitive anymore within Germany, and MCI only is worth using if you
have F&F.


chris ...

   ---snip,snip---

Calling the US from Germany:

Telekom's overseas (USA) rates 24 hours/day:

    1 Unit = 7 seconds = DM.23, 24 hours/day
    (DM 1.97/min; @USD 1 = DM 1.50, this is USD 1.31/min)


ATT's USA-Direct rates 24 hours/day:

    $2.50 surcharge
     1.77 first minute      (i.e., $4.27 first minute)
     1.09 add'l minutes


MCI's call-USA rates 24 hours/day:

    $2.00 surcharge
     1.76 first minute  (i.e., $3.76 first minute)
     1.09 add'l minutes

And you can call an 800 number for the same charge (i.e., no cheaper).


After the 20% Friends & Family discount:

    $1.60 surcharge
     1.40 first minute  (i.e., $3.00 first minute)
     0.87 add'l minutes

Table of charges after X minutes with each carrier
  all numbers in US dollars (at USD1=DM1.50)

min->     1      2      3      4      5*     6      7      8      9     10  
      --------------------------------------------------------------------
DT:    1.31   2.62   3.93   5.24   6.55   7.86   9.17  10.48  11.79  13.11
ATT:   4.27   5.36   6.45   7.54   8.63   9.72  10.81  11.90  12.99  14.08
Mp:    3.76   4.85   5.94   7.03   8.12   9.21  10.30  11.39  12.48  13.57
Mf:    3.00   3.87   4.74   5.61   6.48   7.35   8.22   9.09   9.96  10.83

min->    11     12     13+    14     15-    16     17     18     19     20
      --------------------------------------------------------------------
DT:   14.41  15.72  17.03  18.34  19.65  20.96  22.27  23.58  24.89  26.20
ATT:  15.17  16.26  17.35  18.44  19.53  20.62  21.71  22.80  23.89  24.98
Mp:   14.66  15.75  16.84  17.93  19.02  20.11  21.20  22.29  23.38  24.47
Mf:   11.70  12.57  13.44  14.31  15.18  16.05  16.92  17.79  18.66  19.53
   where
	DT  = Deutsche Telekom
	ATT = AT&T
  	Mp  = MCI plain
  	Mf  = MCI Friends and Family
	*   = MCI-F&F becomes cheaper than Telekom
	+   = MCI-plain becomes cheaper than Telekom
	-   = ATT becomes cheaper than Telekom