Hi Michiel!

Tuesday May 30 2006, Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Vladimir Donskoy:

 MV>>> No maybe about it. Intercity telephone costs were a big issue
 MV>>> here in The Netherlands and a seven year cost sharing war *was*
 MV>>> fought over it. It is recorded history.

 MV>>> We dealt with it somehow. No reason why you can not do the same.

 VD>> I wrote about cost of phone calls in comparation to the salary -
 VD>> middle salary in Russia is 5000 roubles, but 1 minit phone calls from
 VD>> distance of 1000 km (zone 600-1200 km) is 25 roubles (in my work
 VD>> phone provider - Global1). So - all salary is for 200 minits per a
 VD>> month.

 MV> Yes, that is very expensive. But not unheard of here in the past here as
 MV> well.

How years was ago?

 VD>> How part you salary have for long-distance call for 1000 km (Germany
 VD>> west to east, for example)?

 MV> Across Germany is far less than 1000 km. More like 500.

 MV> Other than that, it depends how far one goes into the past. Note that from
 MV> here a 1000 km call always is an international call. Nowadays it is nt so
 MV> bad for nearby countries, but only ten years ago, it was very expensive.
 MV> Rates of one or two Guilders a minute (up to one Euro) were not unheard
 MV> of.

International calls cost still more - from 1.5 euro per minit for near
countries (Ukraine) to 2-3 euros for Europe countries.

 MV> And *then* we did not have the InterNet as an alternative....

It is a false - you have many alternative providers, and also you have very
high percent of lease-line connects to Internet who can use IP-phones
(SKYPE for example).

 VD>> I agree that we is not unique, but we is very far from Europe (on
 VD>> service and another criteries)...

 MV> Europe is a big place. Here, in The Netherlands things are relatively
 MV> advanced. But in Ireland where my parents had a summer cottage, there
 MV> still was a telephone without a dial and just a crank to signal the
 MV> operator not that long ago.

But your salary allow to use satellit phones (for example - Carol's connect
to FIDO over USA BBS).

About summer houses - in Moscow area at 100-200 km from Moscow exist
villages without any phone communication - without not only-cable but
without cell phones! And his salary is not allow to use satellit :-( .

For example: http://www1.mtsgsm.com/coverage/mts/moscow/ - map of the most
cell provider for Moscow region.

Regards, Vladimir Donskoy

--- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20060326