And lo on Thu, 01 May 2008 15:46:44 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Stephen <mcavoysAT@aoldotcom> wrote:
>> >  At most you could stretch and say that the caller was wasting the
>> >electricity of the phone company.
>
>> Yes and at that time the phone company (GPO) was a state run company.
>
>   But if law is the same for everyone, as it should be, then the state
> should sue everyone who "wastes" the electricity of the phone company
> in a similar manner.

Indeed they should. If the phone company (public or private) is buying in  
electricity (public or private) then the cost of that purchase is probably  
covered by both the set service charge and call charge. If someone were to  
call with the knowledge that the other end wouldn't be picked up and thus  
incur a call charge then in theory they could be classed as defrauding the  
phone company; as with my cheque example.

If we treat this example as a true case then it follows that the phone  
company registered an inordinate amount of short non-charging calls from  
one number to another and investigated. Discovering the truth they were  
miffed that someone was using their system to send a message without  
paying them for the privilege and thus charged them under misuse of  
telecommunications equipment.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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