>> Until they catch you... Here in Virginia, Bell Atlantic and GTE both use
>> traffic monitors on their lines. If they catch you using DOV and you are
>> paying residential and/or voice-only rates, you get socked with the normal
>> data rate you should have paid plus a penalty. If Ameritech looks the
>> other way great. But several providers in our area learned the lesson the
>> hard way.
>
>Someone ought to sue. That looks pretty clearly illegal.
Yeah it is clearly illegal. You paid saying that you wanted voice-only
residential service and then you use it for a business data connection
(And probably for much longer per call than a voice call would take).
So it is hard to claim you are an "innocent victim". It
is only a loophole in their tariffing structure that makes this
advantageous price-wise and they did not anticipate DOV use. ISDN should
be priced the same for residence and business. But they are not. They
price the various services based on expected usage. DOV throws their
equations out of whack and they are trying to fall back and recoup the
proper usage charge. State Corporation Commission has upheld this as a
legal practice, and for now it is the final authority.