Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!unido!laura!deins.Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE!rv From: rv@deins.Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Ruediger Volk) Newsgroups: comp.society.development Subject: Re: Computers and Telephones Message-ID: <3506@laura.UUCP> Date: 29 May 91 19:18:07 GMT Article-I.D.: laura.3506 References: <1991May27.141355.978@darwin.ntu.edu.au> <1991May28.183943.16259@convex.com> <1991May28.204751.11309@news.larc.nasa.gov> Sender: news@laura.UUCP Organization: University of Dortmund, Germany Lines: 47 In article <1991May28.204751.11309@news.larc.nasa.gov> kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) writes: > Still, a good telephone system is essential to modern business. I think >that having phone lines and preferably a local exchange is more important >than computer communications. Start with the easy stuff first; it's quite >easy to set up local phone systems and probably not all that expensive. Oh yes, a good telephone system is essential to modern business! But if you have a bad and overloaded one (and slow and unreliable postal service) there are cases were carrying some of communications by a computer networking service (using the bad phone system you have!) will give you a leading edge; at least that's one of the lessons I learned from discussions with colleagues from Eastern Europe over the last year. BTW from network school in Dec. 90 targeted mainly atnetwork school in Dec. 90 targeted mainly at This may seem strange - and needs and available infrastructure in third world countries may be different (and certainly vary) - but just consider your computer busy trying to establish a connection during all of the night to relay some messages... Of course you need to have at least some parts of a wrotten phone system... The difference between former Eastern Block and third world often may be that the former usually has some internal infrastructure however wrotten but very bad international connectivity (quite bad even between the old allies) while the reverse maybe true for quite a number of third world countries. Anyway at a network school in Dec. 90 targeted mainly at networking staff from Eastern Europe but also attended by a few colleagues from other continents I found examples where the situtation seemed to be quite similar in countries that inherited their phone system from the (e.g.) British some decades ago or that had their phone systems maintained for some decades under the auspices of communist internationalism... Ruediger Volk Universitaet Dortmund, Informatik IRB Postfach 500 500 D-W-4600 Dortmund 50 Germany E-Mail: rv@Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE (or rv@unido.uucp, rv@unido.bitnet) Phone: +49 231 755 4760 Fax: +49 231 755 2386