Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:2110 news.admin:4580 sci.electronics:4909
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!att!cuuxb!mmengel
From: mmengel@cuuxb.ATT.COM (Marc W. Mengel)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.admin,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: i2ack request ...(really US modems in Europe)
Message-ID: <2435@cuuxb.ATT.COM>
Date: 28 Jan 89 17:18:08 GMT
References: <102@i2ack.UUCP> <9198@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <56046@pyramid.pyramid.com> <332@microsoft.UUCP> <8820@alice.UUCP> <198@ecicrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmengel@cuuxb.UUCP (Marc W. Mengel)
Followup-To: news.sysadmin
Organization: AT&T-DSD, System Engineering for Resellers, Lisle IL
Lines: 39

In article <198@ecicrl.UUCP> clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
>Regarding people asking about the legality of various modems in Europe.

>People have to remember that each country usually has its own electrical
>codes and standards.  The reason why a particular modem isn't legal in
>some country but is legal in others often has nothing to do with 
>"monopolistic" PTT's per-se.  It could be a safety requirement.  It
>could also be that North American style modems simply wouldn't work there
>even if they were legal!

 [ electrical isolation, impedances, etc. ]

>I wouldn't blindly assume that restrictions on modems are due to monopoly.
>Nor are the standards themselves - each country has different tradeoffs on
>what is a justifiable risk, and are often working under different environments
>(eg: 240V mains in Britain).  Our CSA is tougher than US UL.  BTT (Britain)
>is overall much tougher than CSA.  Etc.

Okay, so why doesn't some friendly electrical engineering type out there
build an isolation-box that takes Swedish or German or English phone
signals in/out one side, and U.S. phone signals in/out the other, with
possibly opitcal isolation in the middle.

		       +----------+
Tephone Net============| ISOLATOR |===============Modem
		       +----------+

Then this little isolation box is the only thing that needs to meet 
the local standards is the isolation box, and not the actual equipment
(modems, etc.).  With such a box, you could hook up telephones, modems,
fax machines, answering machines, etc.  I'm cross posting this to
sci.electronics... anybody over there heard of such a thing?

>Chris Lewis, Markham, Ontario, Canada
>{uunet!attcan,utgpu,yunexus,utzoo}!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis
-- 
 Marc Mengel					mmengel@cuuxb.att.com
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