Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!occrsh!uokmax!apple!usc!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: knop@duteca.tudelft.nl (P. Knoppers) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Time Limits on Calls Message-ID: <11969@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 10 Sep 90 11:17:51 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Peter Knoppers Organization: Delft University of Technology, Dep. of Electrotechnical Lines: 44 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 634, Message 12 of 14 In article <11852@accuvax.nwu.edu> ihlpf!kityss@att.uucp (Arnette P Baker) writes: >local calls, plus a forced time limit of 2 minutes on the same local >calls. >[Moderator's Note: It sounds likely they had a very dinky little >switch with very few talk paths available. Two or three local >conversations at once going on probably was all it could handle. PAT] My guess is that real metering equipment was too expensive for local calls and the phone company elected to force you to make several calls for long conversations. Back in 1973 (or there-about) I was in Kent (England) and there the public phones also had a 2 minute limit on local calls. I don't know if this also applied too private phones. In the Netherlands local calls used to be unlimited in time (price was one unit). Then it was discovered that some big offices used dialled lines where they should have used rental lines. Combined with the growth of long lasting computer calls (mostly at 300 baud) the phone company decided that too much of their equipment was tied up without making them any money. The first proposal was to impose a time-limit on local calls (this was the cheapest option), but this was considered too unfriendly. Therefore they decided to add the equipment to charge for local calls dependent on duration of the call. Nowadays one unit is charged when the call is answered, one additional unit for every 5 or 10 minutes (depending on time-of-day). (In non- local calls, the period is 47 or 94 seconds.) The first period may be up to 1/6th shorter due of mechanical restrictions in the metering equipment ... Yes, much of this is still mechanical, and it is supposed to last up to 30 years ... BTW, one unit is about US $ 0.08. Of course, there is also a monthly charge (about US $ 12.00 / month / line). Can you believe that calling the US from here is only about US$ 1.25 / minute ? That is cheaper than a non-local call using a payphone in the US (which cost me US $ 2.05 for the first minute). (Payphones in the Netherlands cost about 50% more per unit than private phones.) P. Knoppers, Delft Univ. of Technology, The Netherlands, knop@duteca.tudelft.nl