Phone Home With 1-800

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 31, 1999 | by Donna De Marco

Toll-free calls are coming home as residences begin to get 1-800 numbers.

Toll-free numbers aren't just for business anymore. The major longdistance carriers are offering residential customers personal toll-free numbers -- an easier alternative to calling cards and collect calls -- in their bids to win the contentious longdistance battle. The numbers are another way long-distance companies have spruced up their services in the past decade.

Residential toll-free numbers appeal to college students and their parents, relatives and frequent travelers. Not only are they easy to use, but they are cheaper than collect calls or phone credit cards. Depending on the longdistance company, customers may pay only regular long-distance rates, which range from 15 cents to 35 cents per minute. By comparison, one major long-distance carrier charges 50 cents a minute for its calling card, in addition to a 99-cent surcharge.

All three major carriers -- AT&T, Sprint and MCI WorldCom -- have their own version of the toll-free product. "It's another component of Sprint service" says Roger Crisman, a senior market manager. "Satisfying our customers' needs obviously benefits Sprint."

Some long-distance carriers even offer the 800 numbers at no extra cost. "We want to compete on every front so our customers don't go to one of our competitors who do provide it," says Brad Burns, a spokesman for MCI WorldCom, which gives a toll-free number to each residential customer -- about 20 percent of the 100 million U.S. households.

Of the three big players, MCI WorldCom is the only one that does not charge a monthly fee, but it does charge 30 cents a minute. Sprint, which began marketing a toll-free number to residential customers in 1990, has a monthly fee of $3 and charges 20 cents a minute. AT&T's monthly fee is $2.50 with 25-cent minutes.

Industry officials say the popularity of personal toll-free numbers is growing, but a survey in October by the Yankee Group, a Boston telecommunications research firm, found that only 13.5 percent of MCI customers knew they had an 800 number. The phone company began dishing out toll-free numbers in September 1994, and current customers were notified about the new feature. The company also uses direct mail a few times a year to remind them about the number.

Officials at Bell Atlantic, which cannot offer toll-free services over state lines because it is a local carrier, agree that residential toll-free numbers are a smart addition for a long-distance service. Bell Atlantic is tangled up in the fight to allow local phone companies to offer long distance. "Once we have long distance, we will definitely promote a toll-free product," says spokesman Jim Smith. "It makes sense."

One further advantage of toll-free numbers: They're more secure than a calling-card number when being punched in at a public location. "If someone is shoulder-surfing you at an airport phone booth, they won't be able to steal the number and make long-distance calls with it -- the worst they can do is use it to call your house," says Fred Voit, senior analyst with the Yankee Group.

Carriers hope to lure more customers by adding the toll-free numbers to their service packages. AT&T offers a package for $29.99 a month that includes 10 cents a minute for regular long-distance calls, those made to the toll-free number and cell-phone calls made within a certain distance from home. Depending on the day, toll-free calls make up about 40 percent of AT&T's total traffic.

Sprint also offers a service package called "Sprint Sense Anytime" which includes a $10 monthly fee that offers 10 cents a minute for calls that come into the toll-free number, phone-card calls and long-distance calls made from home.