[telecom] Verizon Announces End of 900 Number Billing

It's more than that, Verizon owns what's left of MCI, which apparently is the only long distance carrier in the US still providing 900 service. So as of Tuesday, there will be no 900 service in the US at all. Good riddance.

It's interesting that in the Netherlands 0900 (equivalent to North American

Does what's left of MCI still include any MCI Mail, aka mcimail.com?

Just curious, is all, as a former MCI Mail customer :-) . Cheers, -- tlvp

No, they shut it down in 2003, killed by ubiquitous unmetered Internet email.

This is because in the Netherlands, it's possible to have 0900 calls with fairly small minimum payments. The large minimum payment in the US pretty much killed services like that.

--scott

Please quantify. Can the billed charge be as low as 0.30 euro? What do you believe was the US minimum: 2 dollars?

Those of us who were still MCI Mail customers on the very last day of service got a special message from Vint Cerf, who worked at MCI at the time. I saved a copy. I just ran a search through Google, and I don't see it anywhere else, so with 2013 being the 10th anniversary of the demise of MCI Mail (and the 30th anniversary of its start), this is probably a good time to share it.

Date: Mon Jun 30, 2003 9:37 am CDT From: Vinton G. Cerf / MCI ID: 105-0002

Subject: MCIMAIL September 27th, 1983 - July 1st, 2003

Dear Friend and Valued Customer of MCI Mail,

This letter is the final commercial email being sent from the MCI Mail team to all of its customers. It marks a major milestone in an era of electronic communication at MCI that began on September 27, 1983. The introduction of MCI Mail transformed MCI from a feisty long distance service provider into a complete communications company. MCI Mail brought remarkably advanced concepts into being including the ability to send postal, overnight courier, and conventional email as well as Telex with a single email letter. The ability to send fax was added a few years later.

But all good things must eventually come to an end. So we thank you, our valued customers, for your loyal support and dedication over nearly 20 years.

This message system will self-destruct at Midnight, 30 June 2003.

With warmest wishes, Vint Cerf Sr. VP, Architecture and Technology MCI

John C. Fowler, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

As I recall (Thad Floryan can confirm or refute, I suspect), the 900 number set up for accessing the modem pool to GET SouRCeS for at&t's Unix PC typically charged a quarter a minute: 1-900-GET-SRCS. Not that I ever used it, but I kinda' knew it was there if I needed it.

Cheers, -- tlvp

Hmmm, I was unaware of that number for that purpose. I just checked the latest 3B1 FAQ (both parts) and it doesn't appear.

A Google search found this page:

where we see this:

" Site: uunet.uu.net " Contact: Dave Brierley ( snipped-for-privacy@uunet.uu.net) " Location: Fairfax, VA " Modems: Telebit " UUCP: uunet uucp customers only " FTP: anonymous ftp " Mail server: netlib@uunet " Additional: UUNET is keeping archives in ~ftp/comp.sources.3b1, " and I will be maintaining them. You can also use " 1-900-GOT-SRCS to access this archive.

but no mention of the cost of the 900 line. I doubt it was very expensive since people would have been howling if it was. I did occasionally call direct into UUnet as a long-distance call from California but that barely made a dent in my phone bills way back then with 4 lines: one for the home, one for FAX, and two modem lines; I abandoned all four in 2002 and have been cellphone-only since then.

FWIW, I usually would ftp into UUnet, and until UUnet's demise I would use it as a ping 'target' to test latency to the East Coast from Northern California (SF Bay Area).

Thad

The New York Times offered crossword puzzle solutions via a 900 number

How can I get help with The New York Times Crossword puzzle? Answers to clues for crossword puzzles that have appeared in The New York Times dating back an entire year are available by calling

This no longer appears in the crossword help files. No substitute as far as I could tell.

-- Sent from my new iMac Julian Thomas snipped-for-privacy@jt-mj.net

The same thing is true of the USA Today crossword puzzle and it's still shown as late as today's paper.

It also lists an 800 number for callers using a credit card.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

It looks like their subscription online crossword service includes clues:

Since I've only used a 1-900 about twice in my life (to call tech support for one thing or another) I can't speak to all 1-900 calling. But this I seem to remember: that 1-900 calls could be flat rate i.e. perhaps 50 cents flat rate for the entire call such as to call the time (1-900-310-TIME) or a per minute rate which could cost many dollars per minute to call one of the numerous sex lines which migrated from the "976" space.

As I recall the 0900 numbers in the Netherlands; the numbers that I saw were always X Eurocents per minute and depending on what you were calling the rate varied from 15 Eurocents upward. I just resented paying anything for 0900 calls to a business (such as an airline to which I'd paid several hundred dollars for passage) and expecting me to contribute to their welfare by dialing a premium number to which they shared the revenue with the telecom provider.

It may be that the 0900 numbers are being used to screen out "the buyers from the spyers": if a customer is wiling to pay a fee to call a reservation center, then the odds are that (s)he thinks it is a minor fee compared to the fare for the flight.

Bill Horne Moderator

Thanks for coming through yet again, Thad: I stand corrected: not GET but GOT (1-900-GOT-SRCS). As for the quarter a minute, I think that's right, but I won't swear to it with my life :-) . But a 360 KB floppy's worth of download, taking five minutes, say, in the era of 14.4 Kb/s Trailblazers, hence costing $1.25 for the toll charge, would compare favorably with the cost of a proper envelope and postage for such a floppy full of code.

Regardless, Happy New Year, and thanks for the vowel/tense correction :-) .

Cheers, -- tlvp

Curiously enough, the mcimail.com domain as email provider still has some sort of service activity, as the following transcript of a test SMTP session initiated recently by a RIM BB PlayBook app named DNS shows:

Can horus-10.ni.argfrp.us.uu.net be serving as a mail collector for mcimail.com, despite there being no remaining mail service there?

I'm puzzled. Any ideas? TIA. And cheers, -- tlvp

The lowest rate I can find is 0.01 euro/minute, at which the receiving party has to pay to receive the call. Maximum timed rate I see advertised is 0.80 euro/minute.

There is also the option of costs per call with rates between 0.075 euro and 1.30 euro per call advertised.

This is just from a google search of some 0900 providers. I haven't looked into 0900 service seriously in the last 20 years.

Koos van den Hout