FX charge for local line?! [telecom]

Phil Smith III wrote: :25 years ago, we moved to this house and got a new phone number.

:At some point, I noticed a 72-cent-per-month FX charge on our bill. Given that :we hadn't asked for a number to be ported, that made no sense, so i called :Verizon. They had no idea, promised someone would call me back. Of course that :never happened. Over the last few years, I've asked several times. At 72 cents :a month, it wasn't worth a lot of my time, obviously.

:Today I had a few minutes and was curious, so I called again. Once we got past :the rep going away for ten minutes to find out what an FX line was (which he :then tried to explain to me), he got me a supervisor, who spent another 20 :minutes on it, eventually saying that the only way to lose the charge is to :change the number.

:Did a lookup on localcallinguide.com, found that it's at the local CO: :

:Next will be to ask a few of the neighbors if they're paying FX charges.

:Seems like this is pretty simple: Vz is charging for something they shouldn't :be. OTOH, I don't know what "Washington Zone 19" vs. "Herndon" means in the :"Rate Centre" (British spelling?!) column. We'd be one of the "Washington Zone :19" NXX.

The rate center is what's used to bill the call. It's likely historical: there are many fewer switches and wire centers than there used to be, and the switches that are left often handle many rate centers. In some places, like in illinois, local rates are based on the geographic distance between the historical rate center, which means that a call that never leaves a consolidated switch can be billed as one that is 20 miles or more.

I suspect you have a number that's 'washington zone 19' but you're in the Herndon geographic area. I suspect thassqt's just an error, and not a scheme to extract $8.64 a year from you, but I wouldn't be surprised if the reason they won't fix it is that $8.64. (Times how many thousands of customers they're squeezing it out of.)

That sounds right. Suburban D.C. historically had very bizarre rate centers, with a lot of special cases to let people be a local call from D.C. I recall somewhere in Maryland where you could choose a local or DC local number, both served from the same CO, so that people in adjacent houses would be a toll call apart.

R's, John