Cost-cutting plan by SBC upsets frequent dialers

SBC has canceled its popular Local Plus calling plan, replacing it with a new plan that has irked some of its customers because it raises rates for heavy users, especially those who spend a good deal of time dialed in to the Internet.

In fact, some rural Internet users have reacted to the plan, which takes effect Monday, by canceling their subscriptions to local Internet service providers, saying that they can no longer afford Web access if it's going to cost them long-distance prices when they get online.

"I really think it's a disservice to anybody in the rural community," said Randy Miller, a church pastor in Fredericktown, Mo. "If we had 100,000 people in our community, you could call 10 to 20 miles away and it wouldn't be long distance. Regardless of these plans, we should be able to call a few miles away without being charged extra."

SBC Communications Inc., the nation's second-largest local phone company, recently sent letters to customers announcing it was discontinuing the Local Plus calling plan and introducing a new calling plan called Toll Value. Local Plus allowed customers to pay a flat rate of $34.99, and then they could make an unlimited number of calls to anywhere in this local access toll area, which includes all of the St. Louis area and all the 573 area code except Rolla, Jefferson City and Columbia.

Minute limit

Under the new plan, customers can pay a charge of $32.95 and call those areas, but their minutes would be limited to 1,000, according to Marsha Haskell, SBC's regional director for external affairs. Any minutes over that would cost customers a flat rate of 9 cents a minutes.

Haskell said SBC needed to limit the number of minutes people could have because the old plan was no longer financially viable. She pointed out that when SBC customers call people who have a different phone service, such as AT&T, then SBC is required to pay a special fee to that company. In some cases, that fee is as high as 15 cents a minute.

If an Internet user is on the Web four hours a day for 20 days during the month, that's 4,800 minutes, Haskell said.

"It's possible we could be paying $720 for you to place those calls to another local provider per month," she said. "But the revenue we're getting from the service was $34.99. We couldn't keep losing that kind of money."

The service was intended for voice calls, but then people started using the Internet increasingly under the plan, Haskell said.

Haskell pointed out that the change in plans won't affect 80 percent of SBC's 2.4 million access lines in Missouri.

"For those who don't go above the 1,000 minutes, it will be cheaper," she said. "The vast majority are actually going to save money."

Haskell said she knew there had been complaints, but she could not provide figures.

Upset in Marble Hill

One upset customer is Carl Brown, a disabled Marble Hill resident who relies on the Internet to order items as well as to stay into contact with family members that live far away via e-mail.

"This thing is blowing us totally out of the water," Brown said. "You can use 1,000 minutes up on the Internet if you're on the Internet just 30 minutes a day. So we can't afford to have Internet now. If we can't afford this new plan, then the only people we can call that's not long distance is Marble Hill."

Brown said he had to cancel his Internet service with the non-profit provider Show Me Net, which costs $100 a year but would cost much more if all the calls to dial in were long distance. Other commercial providers could connect him, but some of those cost as much as $300 a year, Brown said.

"They're just trying to get more money out of people," Brown said. "I'm thinking about getting a cell phone."

Local Internet companies said they're already losing some customers because of the plan.

"Yes, we are losing customers in some of the remote areas," said Gene Magnus, owner of Clas Computers. "We've lost customers down in the Bootheel and north of Jackson. We've probably lost at least two dozen customers."

Magnus said while two dozen customers may not sound like much, in today's economy any loss of income is bad news.

"It's all amplified because of the economy," he said.

Danny Stratton is the operations manager of Jackson-based Show Me Net, a non-profit provider with a goal to get Internet access in rural areas. He said he's lost some customers but gained some who had been using Internet providers that were farther away. Now, his service seems more reasonable.

Stratton said he was trying to get 800-number service to provide Internet service to rural places.

Meanwhile, customers like Miller, the Fredericktown pastor, are looking for ways to circumvent the phone company.

"I've started using a cell phone for my long distance," he said. "They're more concerned with making money than doing what's right, so I think more and more people are going to be doing this."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137