[HUMOR] 3 cheers for the entrepreneurial spirit

Mark Q. Maxham (max@research.apple.com)
Wed, 04 Sep 1996 09:42:07 -0700

[Quoted from _Chattanooga_Free_Press_, July 14, 1996, page C6.]

HOUSTON -- You're in Houston and you need help calling Dallas.
The local telephone operator asks you to pick a long-distance company.

If your answer is "I don't know," "I don't care," "It doesn't
matter," or "Whoever," you might end up paying a few extra bucks when
the telephone bill arrives.

A company in suburban Fort Worth has trademarked these phrases
as names of long-distance carriers whose rates for operator-assisted
calls are about twice those of major companies.

"It's not deceptive at all," said Dennis Dees, 38, president of KT&T Communications Inc., the holding company for the curiously-named
subsidiaries.
"There's nothing here to be defensive about. I'm charging a
fair price compared to the market share for my product. I've come up
with a name that's pretty creative and it's successful for us. There's
no reason to be embarrassed."

...

[The source notes: "I noticed these odd names on the FCC's PIC-code list
(available from their BBS); at first I thought someone had been
playing with the spreadsheet that contained the PIC codes (and that
Lotus just left junk in), but no -- it's true, "whoever" is a long
distance company!"]