From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Dec 21 18:27:46 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA03973 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Mon, 21 Dec 1998 18:27:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA03963 for ; Mon, 21 Dec 1998 18:27:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id MAA01331; Tue, 22 Dec 1998 12:57:23 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id MAA08565; Tue, 22 Dec 1998 12:57:23 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19981222125723.W85005@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 12:57:23 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Mark Ovens , Brett Glass Cc: tj-fbsd@funbox.demon.co.uk, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Phone rates References: <4.1.19981221111410.06cbb650@mail.lariat.org> <367ED766.C2941435@uk.radan.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <367ED766.C2941435@uk.radan.com>; from Mark Ovens on Mon, Dec 21, 1998 at 11:19:02PM +0000 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Monday, 21 December 1998 at 23:19:02 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: > > Brett Glass wrote: >> >> At 11:15 AM 12/21/98 +0000, tj-fbsd@funbox.demon.co.uk wrote: >> >>> Capitalism may reign supreme over on your side of the water, but >>> British Telecom is unfortunately rather too good at sucking in the >>> profits over here... >> >> I understand that there are two others: Mercury and another. Are >> they undercutting BT or just going along for the ride? >> > > Part of the problem is that BT still own all the major inter-city > trunks, so even if you use Mercury making a call from, say, London to > Manchester still has to use BT lines, which Mercury has to pay for. So > BT still holds the upper hand. That's part of the story. In most countries, the (ex-)national Telecom provider owns the trunks. I think it's even the case in the US, though I'm not sure. It's certainly the case here in Australia, but I subscribe to a discount service which gives me national long-distance calls (up to about 3000 miles) for $0.19/minute in peak time and $0.14/minute for the rest (Australian $, about $0.60 US). That's *much* lower than Telstra, and pretty good in international comparison. Phone calls to the USA are about $0.31 a minute. >> I do recall that some pay phones in the UK also rejected the 0800 >> number for my MCI international calling card. Why? The phone was >> owned by a company that had an exclusive deal with AT&T. They >> blocked calls to anyone else's 800 number. > > Don't know. I didn't think that sort of thing was allowed. I'm sure it's not, but it's apparently pretty common. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message