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From: debra@alice.UUCP (Paul De Bra)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.admin
Subject: Re: i2ack request for news/email supply connection
Message-ID: <8820@alice.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 89 02:19:07 GMT
References: <102@i2ack.UUCP> <9198@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <56046@pyramid.pyramid.com> <332@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: debra@alice.UUCP ()
Organization: AT&T, Bell Labs
Lines: 34

In article <332@microsoft.UUCP> w-colinp@microsoft.uucp (Colin Plumb) writes:
>csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) wrote:
>...
>Could someone tell the world about the legality of various modems in
>Europe?  I remember hearing about France requiring modems to apologise
>if they call a human.  It won't stop me from bringing and using my
>Trailblazer, but it would be nice to know how quiet I have to keep.

I don't know about all of Europe, but as far as monopolizing goes
Belgium is certainly in the top.

For using modems on the telephone net the rule is very simple: it is allowed
if the modem are "certified" by the phone company.
The catch is that there are no certified modems for sale...
The only certified modems are the ones you can rent from the phone company
at a very high monthly rate (considering the cost of the modems).

Recently though some V21 and V22 modems have become certified. So 300 baud
and 1200/75 baud is now possible.

For the X-25 the situation is different, mainly because the phone company
is unable to supply the hardware. So certified X-25 hardware exists, but the
rates for using X-25 are very high.

Either way you loose, unless you illegally install modems (trailblazer or
other) that work just fine and are legal and cause no problems in the US.

All in all a very sad situation over there.

Paul.
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