Re: China

At  8:29 AM 2/11/96 -0500, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote:
>Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
>> At 01:54 PM 2/10/96 EST, you wrote:
>> >It's not difficult to imagine that governments will seek to regulate the
>> >possession of modems again. Some may recall that in the U.S. it used to be
>> >technically illegal to connect a modem to the phone jack without a permissio
>> >from AT&T.
>>
>> Actually, permission from the local phone companies, who owned the system,
>> I assume?  (Though I don't actually remember which parts of The Phone Company
>> were involved in the Carterphone decision.)
>
>Nope.  I used modems back when the local phone company _was AT&T. :-)

Back in the really dark ages, we used acoustic couplers (300 b/s max) which
held a telephone handset, so there was no direct connection to the
telephone lines.  The phone company asserted that they were also illegal,
but their argument was kind of weak!

frantz@netcom.com (Bill Frantz) writes:
> Back in the really dark ages, we used acoustic couplers (300 b/s max) which
> held a telephone handset, so there was no direct connection to the
> telephone lines.  The phone company asserted that they were also illegal,
> but their argument was kind of weak!

I used acoustic couplers. My first modem was 110 bps, and when we got 300 bps,
it seems so fast in comparison... And then 1200 bps seemed even faster.
Acoustic couplers are still useful if you travel to places where there are
no rj11 connectors.
I recall that AT&T's argument against connecting any kind of user equipment to
their lines was that it might electrocute one of their workers.
I recall that recently in Germany one could not have a modem without some
kind of licence from DT - has it changed?
Personal computers, modems, and phone lines are ubiquitous in the U.S. and
most other developed countries. I suspect that modems may be rare enough in
China for the government to regulate their possession, using any silly excuse.

---

Dr. Dimitri Vulis
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps