I spoke to Vint about the cards some time afterwards. He said that there were a few issues with certain very specific cards but the overall cost was not excessive. My theory is that the exercise told them a worst case for what they might expect cost wise if they went to flat rate billing. I didn't use the card very much until the trip home. It's the only time I have ever called the UK from an airplane. > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Theodore Ts'o > Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 3:59 PM > To: Ole Jacobsen > Cc: The IETF > Subject: Re: Last time we went to Dallas > > On Fri, Nov 18, 2005 at 10:53:39PM -0800, Ole Jacobsen wrote: > > > > Ten years ago, MCI hosted the IETF in Dallas. Someone > thought it would > > be a nice idea to give every attendee an MCI card that > would be good > > for free calls to anywhere in the world during the IETF week. > > > > Of course, the IETF community being what it is, a number of people > > decided that "free calls anywhere" was a concept that > needed to be tested, fully. > > As I recall, various parts of community interested in > security and privacy were swapping cards around to scramble > any attempts by MCI personnel to learn anything about which > phone numbers we were calling. > This was before the days when companies made a regular > practice of providing a privacy statement and at least making > a public commitment to honor it (while the back office people > would keep a few thousand credit card numbers for testing > purposes, natch). > > > By Tuesday afternoon the hotel switchboard was overloaded and > > hastily-created signs began appearing in the hallways, > elevators and > > elsewhere saying something to the effect of "please disconnect your > > permanent connections..." > > The switchboard was overloaded not because of the permanent > connections. Tthere were only a few people doing this, but > they were costing MCI $$$ because the international calls > resulted in real dollars being spent on international > circuits, as opposed to just utilizing otherwise unused > circuits on their domestic network. > Although it was somewhat amusing to learn that at least one > employee of one of MCI's competitors was keeping permanent > connections to places like Sweeden on MCI's nickle.... > > Rather, the hotel had a certain number of (voice) T-1 lines > dedicated for AT&T, SPRINT, and MCI long-distance traffic, > and with the MCI cards, it meant that everyone was > overloading the outbound MCI trunks while keeping the other > trunks unutilized. The hotel eventually reconfigured their > outbound trunks, but it was also really annoying for the > hotel because the only thing that has a higher profit margin > is alcohol, and so not only did it cost them money and extra > headaches for the hotel telecom manager (with whom I had a > chance to chat at the end of the conference as I helped the > host team with the terminal room tear down), but the hotel > also lost a substantial amount of income that they normally > would have counted upon when hosting a group of our size. Oops. > > > Note to Nokia: Although we'd love a free cellphone and a > SIM card for > > the week, you might want to consider the consequences... > > Heh. Well, there is always the Nokia 770.... > > - Ted > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf