[MUD-Dev] Pay Muds & Free Muds - working together, or againsteach other?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Greg Miller wrote:

> Ross Nicoll wrote:
> > 
> > I left it because of cost in general (we pay per minute here, the phone
> > bill was costing far, far more than the MUD), although I do still drop in
> > from time to time...
> 
> And to think that the FCC is considering giving us an actual *discount*
> for connections to ISPs in the US :) The real solution for you guys is
> to get American communications companies to move in and attempt to take
> over your local company's territory. That'll happen, but maybe not until
> revenues in the US stop expanding at godawful rates in several areas.

Chuckle, talk about rubbing it in to the non-Americans! Incidentally, you
English types should check out www.lineone.co.uk. I'm told by English
people that it is offering free phone calls to the ISP during certain
times of the day (nighttime mainly I believe).

Unfortunately, the much of mainland Europe is unlikely to see free local
calls anytime soon. As an example, in Italy, the argument against free
phone calls is that their telecom infrastructure couldn't handle the
usage. I believe that is a problem in quite a few economically
sub-standard countries. France is too protectionist to allow american
phone companies to operate there, and while Germany has, from what I
understnad, an excellent infrastructure, they too don't seem likely to
move to free phone calls in the near future. An interesting twist that I
read about is how users in Poland are actually laying fibre themselves in
order to bypass the telecom companies. They are sharing the cost via a
co-operative type arrangement.
--matt




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