[Imc-newsroom] long distance charges:

[Sascha Meinrath]

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Clint Popetz wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 01:08:00PM -0600, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
> > hi all,
> >
> > whoever made a long-distance call to ecuador at 9:14am on november 8th,
> > please contact me.  the UCIMC has a block on long-distance calls --
> > unfortunately, someone found a work-around (and a really expensive one at
> > that).  here is the problem -- this call cost over $6/minute (!) -- this
> > means that the UCIMC now has a $140 bill to AT&T.  i expect that the UCIMC
> > will be reimbursed for most of these charges by whoever made the call --
> > that person also has the option of attempting to contact AT&T to address
> > this highway robbery.
>
> Maria Silva made this call, with my help, to do an interview for the
> newshour with one of the directors of the campsesino groups which
> organized the anti-FTAA uprising in November.
>
> I was told that the only way to call long-distance from the IMC was
> with the the work-around, which you gave me.  I also knew the
> workaround had been used to do previous phone interviews for the
> newshour, so I assumed it was kosher to do it again.  I had not been
> told it was really expensive.

The only work-around I know about doesn't use AT&T and has only been used
for state-to-state calls -- this is either something else, or something
that whoever made the call must have agreed to when they made the call.
The work-around I've used is .04 cents a minute -- this was over
$6/minute.

> IMHO, not being able to do long distance phone interviews from the IMC
> without jumping through hoops, and then having the hoops be very
> expensive, is a realy hamper to doing radio news there.

If people want to work on this problem, that's fine -- I'm completely
supportive and all for it.  On the other hand, we currently have a $140
phone bill that needs to get dealt with; the reason why the hoops exist
are because people were abusing the IMC's phones in the first place.
Could someone from IMC-News please take on calling AT&T to deal with this
bill.

--Sascha