DW> My first modem was a 300 bps acoustic coupler made by Sendata,
DW> I bought it in 1982, the sticker says it was Telecom approved
DW> and the instruction manual says that using a non approved modem
DW> could result in a fine.. only COULD, so i guess that Telecom
DW> werent too fussed about chasing people back then.

PE> You only have to pay if you get caught, hence the "could".
 They can't
PE> say "will", because they don't know that they're going to catch you.

Nope, because they normally would just tell you to stop using it on the
phone system, not actually try to convict you in a court and fine you.

They also had the power to just seize it too.

The same applied to illegal phone wiring, when they discovered it they
normally just cut off the illegal stuff, no attempt to fine you, even
tho they could have gone thru all that rigmarole if they wanted to.

No normal user was ever fined for a non austel approved modem as far as
I am aware, the fine was mainly intended so they could choose to bludgeon
a commercial operation who told them to go and fuck themselves etc.
@EOT:

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