Cutting the cord [Telecom]

True enough. And, there is the "foreign exchange" aspect of Vonage. My primary number is in Washington, DC, although I am in Southern California. This had nothing to do with portability.

Many years ago when I had an AMPS carphone (pocket-sized phones were not generally available at the time) with ILEC Bell Canada's cellular service, their own literature pointed out that a local call covered a much wider area for a cellular phone than for a land line; it seemed to be pitched not so much as a feature/advantage as a way to calm subscribers' worries about unexpected long distance charges.

In article ,

Local calling areas and rate centers are _not_ directly related to each other.

The local calling area _is_ 'whatever' the LEC declares it to be for calls that originate with them. (for pay-as-you-go services like TRACFONE, essentially all of 'country code 1' [the U.S. and Canada] is the 'local calling area' -- users pay the same rate whether the call terminates across the street or across the country.)

Usually, but not necessarily, a local calling area is defined relative to the rate center for the originating number. And, unfortunately, it

-doesn't- work symmetrically. Just because I can call you as a 'local' call, that *doesn't* guarantee that you can call _me_ as a local call.

A rate center is a 'simplified' billing point for a geographic area. It is an arbitrary end-point for calculating "distance-based" billing rates, and it usually equates to a hand-off point -- where the call _may_ be given to an IXC (or, on rare occasions, 'more than one'), if needed, to complete the circuit. Originating/terminating LECs get fixed payments, while the IXC gets distance-based compensation. If multiple IXCs involved, payments to them are effectively pro-rated, based on the rate-center-to-rate-center distances for the portion of the call that each IXC handled.

I have a client moving about 1 mile within DC. Of course, it is across a CO boundry. I called Verizontal and got the usual story "You need new DN's"...."Or you can buy FX service!"... dance.

So I responded that we'd just find a CLEC. Woosh, she put me on hold, and

Isn't it amazing how much even a little competition will accomplish?