Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: olsa99!mje@ddsw1.mcs.com (Mark J Elkins)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Best and Worst (Was Re: Labor Day, 1990)
Message-ID: <11869@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 6 Sep 90 08:42:13 GMT
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Reply-To: Mark J Elkins <olsa99!mje@ddsw1.mcs.com>
Organization: Unix Commercial - Olivetti Africa
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In article <11661@accuvax.nwu.edu> jwb@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (Jim
Breen) writes:

>In article <11635@accuvax.nwu.edu>, telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM
>Moderator) writes:

>> ...., the United States
>> still has the finest, and most technically complex phone system in the

>[2] if you mean most technically advanced, I must ask again for the
>evidence.

[Moderator's comments....]
>surely yours is in second or third place, along with New Zealand, the
>UK, and Hong Kong (loud and clear!). Most South American telephone
>systems are bad news, as is a lot of the middle east.   PAT]

The best telephone system I've seen is in ...  Botswana.  Botswana had
British Telecom come down and re-install the complete system from
scratch.  There are microwave channels everywere.  All numbers are six
digit - the first two being a 'town' code.  (Some towns have more than
a single code.) Everything is tone dial - and dialed numbers seem
almost to ring before the last number is dialled.  Its the only
national telephone system were I've seen 'call back on busy' work
country-wide.

Strangly enough - whilst in Italy - I couldn't get through to
Botswana.  I needed access to a machine there - so I ended up dialling
to my machine in South Africa on one line - and back out to Botswana
on another line.

 From my home phone (in RSA) - If I push 'repeat-dial' - from the time
the Touch Tones finish to the time a US phone begins to ring is
usually less than three seconds.


Olivetti Systems & Networks, Unix Support - Africa
UUCP: {uunet,olgb1,olnl1}!olsa99!mje (Mark Elkins)
mje@olsa99.UUCP (Postmaster) Tel: +27 11 339 9093