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  From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
  To  : Jeremy Ervine <omegasys@adam.com.au>
  Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 13:51:22 +1030

ISDN metering (was: ADSL Enabled Exchange Areas: Updated 20/11/2000)

On Tuesday, 28 November 2000 at  1:22:36 +1030, Jeremy Ervine wrote:
>
>
>>>> Yup - You just need to fool Telstra into thinking you're making voice
>>>> calls so they won't extort $1/hour out of you.
>>>
>>> Rather ironic, as they're both 64K point to point connections (plus,
>>> with a data call, you're not using codecs at the far end to attach
>>> to the PSTN network - you'd think it'd be cheaper. :-).
>
>> Exactly what I've been saying for years.
>
> I was talking to a Telstra employee the other day, and he was
> telling me that in Europe, ISDN has become standard and PSTN and
> they have phased out PSTN to such an extent that PSTN is more
> expensive than ISDN is from Telstra!

Europe is a lot of countries, and that doesn't apply to them all.

In Germany, they have effectively phased out analogue phones, and it's
true that ISDN is cheaper than analogue.  But when I was living there
(up to about 3½ years ago), telephones were *very* expensive.  In
addition, every European country I know about meters local voice
calls.  The ISDN calls were metered at the same rate as the analogue
calls, and the only difference was the line rental (maybe $3 a month
cheaper).

When I returned from Germany, I was able to get a continuous Internet
connection, which I couldn't have afforded in Germany.  Despite this,
my Internet costs (data + phone) dropped by 95%.

Greg
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