Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!swlabs.UUCP!jack
From: jack@swlabs.UUCP (Jack Bonn)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8805271347.AA16475@swlabs.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 88 13:47:12 GMT
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Organization: The Internet
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To: uunet!comp-dcom-telecom
Path: swlabs!jack
From: jack@swlabs.UUCP (Jack Bonn)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Toll-free zone
Message-ID: <1017@swlabs.UUCP>
Date: 27 May 88 13:47:09 GMT
References: <8805270503.AA05256@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: jack@swlabs.UUCP (Jack Bonn)
Organization: Software Labs, Ltd., Easton, CT
Lines: 38


In article <8805270503.AA05256@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU> bnelson@CCB.BBN.COM ("Barry C. Nelson") writes:
>It may not have been exactly "toll-free", but in Italy (and many other places,
>I'm sure), there is ONLY measured service which is accomplished with mechanical
>counters.  They count clicks, the frequency of which goes up with the distance
>(non-linearly).  Your monthly bill shows up with a grand total of the clicks
>used during the previous month; no number called, no dates, no time-of-day, no
>toll-call breakdown.  (Great for accounting :-)

When I was working on a telephone switch for the European market, I thought 
that this would be an area where U.S. technology could improve their service 
the most.

Detailed billing (like that we have in the U.S.) would bring the Europeans into
the 20th century.  We had everything we needed:  called number, calling number,
answer time, termination time.  What a treat.

Then I was told that it would never attain popularity.  I was told that 
most of the world was very wary of having records kept of where and when 
calls were placed by them.  They felt that it would invade their privacy 
to have this record kept _anywhere_ and that this record could not be kept 
without the possibility of them falling into the wrong hands.

By the time I finished thinking about it, I felt that maybe they were right.

As a side note, one of the more humorous advances that I heard about in this
area had to do with reading the counters that kept track of the meter pulses.
I the U.K., the meters are kept in the CO and were read periodically for the
purpose of billing.  To save effort they had devised a scheme to have a
camera traverse the bank of meters in an automatic manner.  A picture was
taken of each group of 4 counters which were then more easily read by
someone working at a desk.

Now there's progress.

-Jack
-- 
Jack Bonn, <> Software Labs, Ltd, Box 451, Easton CT  06612
uunet!swlabs!jack