Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Calls from Egypt Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 89 04:30:29 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Lines: 27 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 514, message 9 of 11 I just had a chat with an Egyptian friend about phone service in Egypt. Her parents live in Alexandria. In order for them to call to Cairo, her father has to go down to the post office and tell them that he wishes to place the call and has to pay for it in advance. Then he goes home and waits several hours for his home phone to ring with the call. If he doesn't wish to wait many hours, he must bribe the post office official to get his call through sooner. When the call finally goes through they have three minutes to talk. At the end of the three minutes, there is a beep and the call is disconnected. International calls are almost impossible. With the time difference and the hours that the post office is open, things never seem to work out. My friend here has only been called by her parents once in the past three years and that was a family emergency. In view of all this, I can't understand why the GTE customers in CA are complaining. It appears that things in CA are not as bad as they could be. 8-) Ken Levitt - via FidoNet node 1:16/390 UUCP: zorro9!levitt INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.edu