An apology, and a question (about uucp in Germany)

[Derek E. Terveer]

In article <786 at redsox.bsw.com>, campbell at redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes:
> Now, my question (and I'd prefer to get answers only from people in Germany,
> who know, rather than people in the US, who are guessing).  What is going on
> in Germany that makes getting a news feed so unbelievably expensive?  [..]

Hopefully, one who used to live in europa will help, rather than one who is
currently living in europa....

> > [..]
> > For every KB mail I received it's charged for $0.70.
>
> I really don't understand this.  Who do you have to pay the $200 to?

Quite possibly the phone company (usually state run and called PTT (post,
telephone, telegraph)).

> In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system
> administrator and set up a uucp link.  If it's a local call, it's free.
> What prevents you from doing that in Germany?  Even if local calls
> aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with
> decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than
> that, at night time rates).

When i lived in Nederland (holland) local calls were charged at 10c (dutch
cents) per call.  I could easily imagine a metered call.  In fact, it might
have been 10c/call + X cents per minute....  Can't quite remember.  In any
event, its not too hard to rack up lots of bucks at 70c/minute.  This article
that i am posting is approximately 2K just by itself.  So, assuming $200/
month is the goal (not desired, of course (:-() and 30 days per month and (just)
1K per article:

	$200.00	    $6.67		$6.67   1 article     9.53 articles
	-------  =  -----	and,    ----- x ---------  =  -------------
	30 days	    1 day		1 day	  $0.70		   day


How many articles do YOU get a day?  More than 10 articles?  That would only be
5 of these (relatively) small articles, like the one i'm posting right now.
Suprising how fast a seemingly little charge can add up, huh?

I have also heard that it is relatively difficult to get 2400 baud modems in
germany, and quite difficult to get >2400 baud modems.

We (in the usa) are pretty lucky...  You should try the telephone service in
Egypt (from what i've heard)...

Hope you-all have enjoyed these simplistic calculations...

derek
-- 
Derek Terveer 	    det at hawkmoon.MN.ORG || ..!uunet!rosevax!elric!hawkmoon!det
		    w(612)681-6986   h(612)688-0667

"A proper king is crowned" -- Thomas B. Costain