10xxx dialing

[Daniel....@spice.cs.cmu.edu]

Just for fun, I tried dialing 10xxx calls last night. I surprised to
find that it worked, actually. I called 10xxx-1-nnn-nnn-nnnn and was
immediately connected. Now, my question is: How will I be billed for
this call? Will the company whose code is xxx actually send me a
separate bill for the one call I made using their service? I'm anxious
to find out.

[Some of the charges will appear on your regular phone bill, as the
RBOC's are in the business of bill-processing for 10XXX calls for some
carriers. Naturally, they retain an effective means of enforcing payment
where the ALDS folks don't: they can shut off your phone. -Elmo]

By the way, here is a list (complete?) of companies available through 10xxx:

xxx Company
------------------------------------------
007 Telemarketing
054 Eastern Telephone
066 Lexitel
080 Amtel
084 LDS Metromedia
085 Westel
203 Cytel
211 RCI
220 Western Union
221 Telesaver
222 MCI
223 TDX Systems
235 Inteleplex
288 AT&T
333 US Telecom
366 American Telco
444 Allnet
464 Houston Network
488 ITT
777 GTE Sprint
800 Satelco
824 ATC/Directline
850 Tollkal
855 Network Plus
888 SBS Skyline

The list comes from this month's 2600 magazine. I tried 220, 444, and
777 last night, so I can only be sure about those services. Not all of
the companies serve the entire country (specifically, Telemarketing,
Eastern Telephone, Telesaver, Inteleplex, Tollkal, and Network Plus do
not). If there are some companies that provide 10xxx service that are
not on the list, please let me know as I plan to check out all of these
to see who has the lowest price/best service.

Dan