John, and Friends in Cyberspace...
I don't have an answer about France, but I can give a comment
on the impact of flat rate/Internet penetration... Or rather,
the lack of a flat rate. In Sweden, as in most countries on
earth I guess, we pay both a monthly fixed fee for the access
to the phone system [~USD 13.79/GBP 8.42 per month], and on
top of that a fee per second of usage. [~USD 0.028/GBP 0.017
per minute local, ~USD 0.062/GBP 0.038 long distance. On top
of it they put a fee of ~USD 0.049/GBP 0.030 every time a call
is answered. And half those prices during the night hours...]
Despite this the ISP's in Sweden claim an Internet penetration
[people with access to the net, e-mail etc] in Sweden of no
less than 30+%! And a large proportion of that is from private
net accesses in the homes [About half the population have access
to a PC at home...]. So obviously a flat rate is not essential
to get a high net penetration in an educated and technically
curious population. But ofcource it would increase the time
spent browsing around on the net! Or significantly lessen the
phone bills - something the phone companies would hate to see,
I guess... Another means of high revenue for those companies
are the cell phone networks digging gold out of the pockets of
the population, with fees in the USD 0.74/GBP 0.45 range per
minute... For the moment about 40% of all Swedes have a personal
cellular phone [and still the Finns beat us to that with slightly
less than 50%...] and thus pay both a fixed line and a cellular
line. Some of us have several fixed lines to that, with separate
lines for faxmachines, phones etc... No wonder telecom is a big
business in the Scandinavian countries...
I just heard the other day that Ericsson sold, on export, cell-
phones and adjacent technology for a higher sum than the entire
exports from the Swedish lumber and paper/pulp industry during
1997! And to that the Finnish Nokia sells for about the same...
/Odd
livo@saglac.qc.ca skrev:
> Does any one know if local calls in France are now (since January
> 1, 1998) untimed and included in the monthly charge, as in Canada
> and most of the US?
> Unlike the UK, where one has to pay for every second on the phone.
> Consequetnly, very few Brits are on the NET.
> John V
--
Odd Hedberg
Pomonagatan 4
S-74236 Östhammar International liaison secretary,
Sweden Triumph Club of Sweden
'70 Spitfire Mk3 FD82497LO Signal Red
E-mail: odd@triumphclub.se / odd.hedberg@bigfoot.com
Club URL: http://www2.passagen.se/triumph/
Home Telephone: Int+ 46-1731 7131
Geographical Position: N 60deg15min E 18deg23min
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