IP: Re: who won the US Revolution? The English (BT) may win it all back

[mikebw@bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net (Mike Bilow)]

  James Love wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:
  
   JL> From: Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk (Brian Randell)
  
   JL> Dave:
  
   JL> On the radio here this morning, discussing Internet growth
   JL> and the BT/MCI merger/takeover a BT spokesman expressed smug
   JL> satisfaction with the fact that there is no tradition of
   JL> free local calls here, so that as the average call time
   JL> zooms because of Internet access, they have no problem in
   JL> financing the extra equipment needed. (In fact there is one
   JL> telephone system here, in the city of Hull, in East
   JL> Yorkshire - owned by the city corporation - and does provide
   JL> free local calls. I gather that an ISP tried to set up shop
   JL> there and soon abandoned the venture.)
  
   JL> Cheers
  
   JL> Brian
  
   JL> Dept. of Computing Science, University of Newcastle,
   JL> Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK
   JL> EMAIL = Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 222
   JL> 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL =
   JL> http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/ 
  
  This is an interesting forward.  I don't know very much personally about UK
  telephone rates, but I do know from Fidonet -- an international store and
  forward echo net which uses dial-up transfers -- that people in the UK often
  end up coerced into doing utterly stupid things.  Fidonet, for example, has an
  administrative structure based on geography, consistent with the US situation
  where it generally costs more to call further away.  However, UK Fidonet nodes
  often have to call long distance to get a cheaper per-minute rate than they
  would have to pay for local access.  It would be interesting to hear comments
  from people are better informed than I am about the UK rates.
   
  -- Mike
  
  
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