I just recently stayed at a hotel in Asheville NC for 3 nights. When I had booked the place, I noted that they didn't have wireless internet, but had free local calls. I figured that was ok, I could just do dial-up with a local number, so I went to the earthlink website (my isp) and printed out a few local Asheville numbers.
At first it was a bear getting my modem to work right with the room's phone line. But once I did get a connection (albeit a slower than average dial-up), I blissfully spent hours on the internet each night, knowing I could just keep it online as much as I wanted. I surfed to pages on Asheville, to resume writing sites (since I am aiming to change jobs), to news sites, to the hatrack boards, wherever.
Then yesterday morning I checked out, and got the bill for the room's "incidentals". Here was my reaction: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhh!!!!!"
Over $170 in phone charges! The numbers the #%*@ earthlink site listed weren't local! I was totally flabbergasted. The room itself was just over $230 for three nights, so this almost doubled the cost of the room. It was totally unexpected. My hands were literally shaking from the shock of it. I'd heard of "sticker shock" before, but I thought it was just a metaphor.
Last night I arrived at a another hotel with "free local calls", this time in Durham NC. I was going to verify with the clerk whether my Durham earthlink numbers were really local, but found out I could get wireless access for a small $4 fee. I heartily agreed to pay it, and now I can truly surf safely.
The moral of the story: Check before you dial. And, wireless rules!
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Man. I feel for you Dav; that bites.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You've just named one of the reasons why I no longer bother with dial-up. Ever.
Posted by Dav (Member # 8217) on :
quote:Originally posted by adam613: They do weird stuff with local phone numbers in that part of the world.
Yeah, different places have different ways of handling calls. Where I'm from you have to dial a 1 before any long distance number else it won't go through, and you always need the area code. So in this case, where I was just dialing seven digits, I had no idea that could possibly be a toll call. It was a painful surprise...
Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
"You've just named one of the reasons why I no longer bother with dial-up. Ever"
What's the other two? Edit: Oh, somehow I read that as "one of the three reasons"...
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
That's terrible Dav.
We get a bit of the problem here in Southern California as well. I always ask the operator whether a dial-up number is local before I use it. But even then, sometimes phone companies can shuffle the zoning around and you'd still get screwed.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
My entire state is one area code. I just realized I have no idea what calls are local and what are long distance.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Oh, I'm so sorry. What a mess.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: You've just named one of the reasons why I no longer bother with dial-up. Ever.
And I won't touch free wireless high-speed internet at a hotel because 90% of them are totally insecure.
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
Does anyone else have to dial ten digits no matter where you're calling? Like even if you're calling across the street you have to dial ten digits?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
L.A. successfully fought off overlays, and we still have local 7-digit dialing.
Which is good, because during the few months that we had 10-digit dialing, most of the security apartment buildings in town had to have the security disabled. Their call-upstairs systems couldn't handle anything longer than a 7-digit number.
Instead of overlays, we just keep getting sliced into smaller and smaller area codes.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)