[techtalk] RE: [grrltalk] webads

[Nils Philippsen]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Lothan wrote:

> On a complete different tangent, I never did understand how folks in the UK
> could tolerate metered service for local calls. It just seems so...
> uncivilized. Of course, I was born and bred in the USA so I come from a
> completely different background and point of view.

(It's similar in Germany:) It's not that you have much of a choice when
you're more or less forced to use what the monopoly gives to you. For
instance the German Telekom (former state monopoly gone public) owns the
last mile to the customer (and many of the smaller telcos have to lease
their lines even for long distances). They charge the other telcos a) a
fixed rate because they provide the wire and b) by the minute/second if
they use those lines (e.g. even if I switched to another telco completely,
Telekom would get it's share metered). Not much of an incentive for the
other telcos to give me unmetered access or a flat rate, is it? A while
ago they were obliged to open up the flat rate they gave to their own
online service T-Online to other telcos as well -- instead of doing this
they just ditched all modem/ISDN flat rates completely (and told their
customers how much better it is to pay many times over the flat rate).

The only way to get a flat rate is either to switch to one of the other
telcos which still offers it (if you want ISDN flat) or to wait on the
Telekom to supply your area with DSL service which might take until
Q1/2002 here (the prospect has been Q2/2002, Q3/2001, Q2/2001 and now
finally Q1/2002 -- I wonder how often this will change in the future). Not
to say that you have to wait that long to get DSL with another provider as
well (beacuse the Telekom provides the lines).

Some 3 or 4 years ago I read about a US TV/phone/cable provider where you
could get TV, phone and cable modem access (4Mbit/s and 1 static IP, not
the lousy ADSL 768/128kbit with dynamic IPs you get over here (or not))
for 60 or 70 USD a month. Let's talk about envy ;-/.

Nils
-- 
 Nils Philippsen / Berliner Straße 39 / D-71229 Leonberg // +49.7152.209647
nils at wombat.dialup.fht-esslingen.de / nils at redhat.de / nils at fht-esslingen.de
   The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
   regarded as a criminal offence.                  -- Edsger W. Dijkstra