Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Monday, 17 Jun 1991 11:41:04 CET From: RWICHARY%ESOC.BITNET@vm1.gatech.edu Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: German Telephone Unification Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 464, Message 4 of 9 Lines: 85 Situation of Unified German Telephone System: Basically, the two parts of (unified) Germany are still two different states, telephonewise. Calling from West to East is still an international call at international rates (and vice versa). What has improved: The PTT is constantly expanding the numbers of lines between the two parts. They are planning (and probably working) on giving the eastern part of Germany [I have to get used to not calling it East Germany myself after 45 years :-)] "the most advanced telecommunications system in the world by 1997". How they are going about it, I don't have competent infos. What has gotten worse: Basically, the load on the system. With the opening of the wall, even before the official unification, businessmen streamed into the east and with them the need for communication (of course, the interest of East Germans to communicate with the West also increased). There are several crucial shortcomings on the eastern phone system: - Low number of private phones. Normally you had to prove the need of having a telephone and then wait several years to get one, unless the party or government officials approved and helped you get one. - Disastrous quality of phone equipment. With data communication just starting in the eastern part, we are beginning to see the LOOOOW quality of the system: high noise and frequent interruptions of lines are symptoms of overaged equipment. More than 300 Baud are rarely possible (even if you have the equipment), and you better have error correction on that, as well. Line interruptions after a minute or two are quite frequent. All this is worked on, but my guess is, it will at best take several years to build up a reliable infrastructure. The connections between the two parts of Germany are heavily overloaded. Calling a number in the East is practically impossible during working hours, since all the lines are busy. Chances are you can reach people at 6 a.m., but then they are not in their office, and who has a private phone? Furthermore, direct dialling is not 100% possible in the East; the major cities can now be dialled direct, but for smaller places you have to go through the operator. [To be fair, the number of places you can dial direct has almost doubled in the last year, the PTT is surely working hard on that as well.] There have been strange side effects of this situation: West German car phones are used widely and barely legal along the border regions. The cellular phone system is expanding along the former transit routes between West Germany and West Berlin. A cellular phone transponder that was put up provisionally during the Leipzig Fair (East), and that provided a direct link to the Western net has been kept running since. A national TV satellite, that was launched far too late and probably wouldn't fit into the European TV satellite scene anyway [but that's a different story], has been rescheduled to provide additional phone lines between East and West. The PTT has introduced "loan numbers", i.e. certain telephone numbers in Frankfurt (West) are actually hooked up to telephones in Leipzig (East). There are, I think, six such "couples" between East and West cities with a maximum capacity of 300 lines each. On the other hand,the PTT is opposing private companies that offer satellite links; let's wait and see how this works out ... There is a personal courier service: A lady living near the former border is taking messages in her West German home, gets in a car, goes five kilometers to a East German town, where she has rented a back room with an Eastern telephone and delivers the message ... and vice versa. What additionally complicates the situation: With the Unified European Market around the corner (1993) the PTT is transforming from a federal institution to a private company with new competitors. The transition is at times confusing: which parts of the system still need PTT approval, which don't ... ??? So we are in a state of transition and the situation will be split for a while. The observations above are that of a private user, not an official statement; I may be wrong in some accounts, but then, the situation is changing day to day. Ralf Wichary (RWICHARY@ESOC.BITNET)