Is Anonymous Communication only for "Criminals"? (was: Re: UCENET II and Peter duh Silva)

[bill.stewart at pobox.com]

At 04:32 PM 12/21/1997 +0900, Joichi Ito wrote:
>Can't a pay phone operator get paid a portion of incoming calls as well?
>If they can set outgoing rates to be very high, couldn't they set their
>incoming rates as well? (This is not an opinion, but a question.)
>I do know that depending on the arrangement, phone companies either
>carry all incoming call for free or cross bill incoming minutes to each other.

It's difficult to do, given the standard settlements arrangement,
though perhaps that may change under the latest confusing rules.
On the other hand, a pay phone carrier _could_ set up their pay phones
with 1-900 numbers (which charge the caller extra) or similar arrangements.
(To avoid burning many 900 numbers, they could have the caller call
1-900-PAYPHON and type in N more digits to specify the phone.)

Besides the privately owned payphones not wanting to receive calls,
the local telephone monopolies would prefer not to have poor people
receiving their phone calls at the local payphone instead of paying
for monthly telephone service, so they don't mind blocking incoming calls.

And mobile business people who use beepers who used to get very annoyed
because they be reached at payphones will just have to buy cellphones;
cellphones cost much less now than a few years ago, and often the
local telephone monopoly is one of the cellphone carriers.
(They're usually also a beeper seller, but that's much more competitive.)
(The last time I went looking for an apartment, I only had a beeper, and
it was _extremely_ annoying not to be able to get callbacks.)

That just leaves sellers and buyers of politically incorrect substances;
the seller can afford a cellphone, but that's too easy to trace,
or a stolen cellphone, but changing the number often makes it hard
for your customers to know your new number.  Meanwhile, 
the customer can't easily have the seller call back to a payphone.
So the Drug Warriors like banning incoming calls at payphones
(I doubt there's national legislation, but I think there are
local laws in some cities, and the states telephone regulators
probably make it easy also) and the payphone companies don't mind.

The biggest losers are poor people, but nobody cares about them.

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart at pobox.com
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