PE> In Sydney, you can go "1-456-02-xxxyyyy" to dial another Sydney
PE> number. Ditto for Melbourne, with an 03 instead.  Nice secret, eh?  I 
PE> started doing that about a week ago.  You may need to have already 
PE> selected Optus as your carrier, I don't know.  BFN.  Paul.

RY> If you really want to help out Optus, I wouldn't do this.  See, you get 
RY> billed from Optus $0.25 for the call, but it costs Optus about $2.00 in 
RY> Line Rental from Telstra :-( .  That is why Optus don't advertise the 
RY> ability to make Local Calls through Optus.

My local calls average around 6-7 minutes duration...

BTW, can you please ACK receipt of this message (for reasons I
won't go into), otherwise I will repost.  Thanks.

Date:   1995-12-18 12:10:28
From:   Malcolm Miles
To:     Paul Edwards
Subj:   TELSTRA
Attr:   recvd 
Area:   ZONE3_SYSOP                   

On Dec 16, 1995 Paul Edwards wrote to andrew gulovsen:

ag> presently, optus are making a loss on almost all local call's via the 1456 
ag> overide.. however.. they are not unhappy, and realise there is a demand for 
ag> optus local.. they asked me *NOT* to advertise the 1456-03 local calls when 
ag> i was on abc radio to the general public, but didn't mind me advertising it
ag>  on the bbs itself..

PE> How short to the phone calls need to be before Optus make a
PE> profit? For Telecom it is 3 minutes, or is that just the
PE> average duration of a voice call?  My calls would average
PE> about 3 minutes each.  My system isn't called Ten Minute
PE> Limit for nothing!  BFN.  Paul.

The exact amount of the interconnect fee paid by Optus to Telstra is not 
officially known. Apparently it is something like 3c per minute. Optus charge 
you 25c for a local call. After 10 minutes Optus would have paid Telstra 30c 
for the call and therefore be down the drain by 5c.

mgm
@EOT:

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