Frank "Sigi" Luithle

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since September 27, 1997

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September 27, 1997, on Communications:
Hi Phil! It is very suprising to me that in the US, country of modern telcom, it can be that hard to get a reliable ISDN connection to work. Though your depictions of *flat* rates (**sigh**) makes my head blush in envy, I must say that when it comes to installation and support, our German monopolist, the Telekom, is up-to-date. A remarkable lot of people here have ISDN, and it usually takes not longer than two weeks until completely set up. The Telekom charges you a fee of about $$130 for installation, and then you pay the normal (unfortunately very high) phone rates, as if using an analog line. All ISPs and online services in Germany support ISDN, and usually they use large dial-in racks (most of the time from Ascend). One word on the rates: The cheapest tariff in Germany at the moment is about 1.7 cents/minute, but that's only from 9 pm to 5 am. From 8 am to 6 pm you pay a rate as high as 4.5 cents/minute (yes, that's $$2.67/hour for a LOCAL call). Forget flat rates (**sigh**...