THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412090849
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 132 lines
The ad campaigns of the nation's Big 3 long-distance companies have all the trash-talking, in-your-face features of a schoolyard basketball game.
AT&T elbows MCI, which jabs back. Sprint bad-mouths the both of them.
It makes for some of the better drama on TV these days. It's also creating a fair amount of confusion. Amid all the claims, it's tough to tell who's the player with the lowest rates.
Thomas J. Cirrito couldn't be happier about the scuffle. President of the Arlington-based Long Distance Wholesale Club, he's one of the architects of the latest gimmick in the marketing of long-distance phone services.
``What we're capitalizing on,'' says Cirrito, ``is the confusion created by the other companies.''
Long Distance Wholesale Club is a long-distance reseller. It and hundreds of other telecommunications companies in the United States buy excess phone-line capacity from bigger carriers like AT&T and use it to to pitch their services to the public.
What is novel about Cirrito's pitch, made in a mass mailing to thousands of Hampton Roads residents over the past month, has to do with a certain five-digit code that belongs to his company.
By simply punching in the code before dialing ``1'' and the long-distance number, consumers can get instant access to Long Distance Wholesale Club's network. The result, Cirrito says, is a savings up to 30 percent off the cost of the call. And there's no need to switch long-distance services officially.
At least two other ``five-plus'' marketers out of Northern Virginia have mailed similar pitches to Hampton Roads households in recent weeks: Chantilly-based Dial & Save and McLean-based MetroComm.
Too good to pass up?
Maybe. Maybe not.
A spot check of rates for making a couple of calls from Hampton Roads (see chart, D2) shows that the prices charged by the ``five-plus'' marketers are definitely cheaper than the basic rates charged by AT&T, MCI and Sprint. They are not necessarily less, however, than the rates charged if you signed up for one of the discount programs offered by AT&T or the other big carriers.
The big carriers do attach more strings to their discounts than the ``five-plus'' gang. You may, for example, may have to rack up minimum monthly charges to qualify.
So depending on how much you call and where you call, Long Distance Wholesale Club or one of its ``five-plus'' brethren could still be cheaper.
But when all is said and done, the best choice will depend on your particular pattern of long-distance calling.
``Everybody has a different set of circumstances,'' says Donna Lampert, special counsel to the Common Carrier Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission. ``You have to ask a lot of questions.'' SELLING FIVE DIGITS
The marketing of five-plus dialing is one of the more novel approaches long-distance providers are trying out there today.
A decade ago, dialing those extra digits before your number was practically the only way to bypass AT&T's long-distance network. Each carrier was designated one of the special codes. Dialing the code got you onto the alternate network, which offered potential savings off AT&T's rates.
But equal-access rules practically eliminated the necessity of punching in those extra digits. Using any carrier, you can now dial ``1'' plus the area code and number to complete most long-distance calls. All it takes is becoming a regular customer of that phone company, which means switching to its service.
Dial & Save, Long Distance Wholesale Club and MetroComm all have customers who've switched over to them and simply dial ``1'' before their calls. They charge them the same rates as people who dial the extra five digits before the number.
So why don't these carriers promote the simpler service instead of ``five-plus'' dialing?
``If we did that,'' says Long Distance Wholesale Club's Cirrito, ``we would be like everyone else. We'd end up on the same mass of confusion heaped on the consumer.''
Cirrito said his company and other ``five-plus'' promoters are seizing on the reluctance of many Americans to make a commitment - to switch. ``A lot of people conceive of that as a risky move,'' he says. ``They feel fear, risk, uncertainty.''
With ``five-plus'' dialing, no switch is required. Users gain access to the alternate carrier's long-distance network, but just for that call while it's in progress. The call shows up on local phone bills as a separate line item.
All long-distance companies still have five-digit access codes. AT&T's is 10288, for example. But these days people generally use the codes to get onto their regular long-distance carrier's network when they're away from home. The codes are also required in some states to use one's preferred carrier on certain in-state long-distance calls.
Generally, though, the codes had stopped being promoted until the ``five-plus'' opportunists came along.
Basically, these outfits are using the codes now to market what amounts to dabble dialing.
Both Long Distance Wholesale Club and Dial & Save, which are owned by the same company, Chantilly-based Telco Communications Group Inc., claim to have carried calls for hundreds of thousands of people in the past year. MetroComm executives didn't respond to an interview request.
How do the Big 3 long-distance carriers regard these upstarts?
Not pleasantly - even though they all sell excess capacity to them.
``When you go to one of these re-sellers, you're not going to get the service you get from us,'' says MCI spokesman Matt Schwab.
The Big 3 carriers' big gripe with alternate providers is the way the upstarts compare prices.
``They're always talking about our basic rates,'' says Juanada Teas, a Sprint spokeswoman, ``but the majority of our people are in discount calling programs.'' Teas said three-fourths of Sprint's long-distance customers are paying less than basic rates because they have signed up for discount plans.
Dial & Save spokeswoman JoAnne Waldrop says the Big 3's discounts often have strings attached and change so frequently, however, that they're more trouble than they're worth.
``With us,'' she said, ``you can sample another store.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
COMPARING RATES
It's impossible to compare the rapidly changing rates and
services of all of the more than 400 long-distance companies in the
United States. But without much trouble, consumers can contrast a
few of the big-name carriers and a few off-brand competitors.
Most carriers have customer-service representatives who can
explain discount programs and provide per-minute charges for numbers
you'd typically dial.
The Telecommunications Research and Action Center has also
compiled a comparison of seven long-distance carriers and 28 calling
plans. For a copy, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to TRAC,
P.O. Box 12038, Washington, DC 20005.
Graphic
STAFF
CALLING LONG DISTANCE
SOURCE: The companies
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB