Linc Madison <linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu> (06/11/91)
Well, the June, 1991 Oakland phone book has hit the streets, with a few notable things in it. First off, the expanded local calling area is covered, although they still distinguish between Zone 1 and Zone 2, even though the rates are identical. Second, the surcharge on calling card calls from payphones, which went into effect well before the April 1 cutoff date on the directory, is not mentioned in any way in the section about prices for calling card calls. In fact, in two different places, there are two different figures given for the surcharge; both are wrong if you're at a payphone. But anyhoo, the other thing I noticed is that in the International calling section, they still list "German Democratic Republic" and "Germany, Federal Republic of" as separate countries. (I forgot to check to see if "Wales" and "Tasmania" are still independent nations.) First of all, I think that Pacific Bell has had more than enough notice of the reunification of Germany that they could have made some mention of Germany and then listed "the area formerly the G.D.R." or something like that. Beyond that, though, what are the plans for bringing Germany under a single country code? Have the plans been finalized and a date set, or is it all still up in the air? It seems clearly unacceptable to have Berlin a united city in a unified German nation, but with two country codes. [apologies if this has been covered recently] Linc Madison = linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu = ucbvax!tongue1!linc
"Spyros C. Bartsocas" <scb@cs.brown.edu> (06/12/91)
> But anyhoo, the other thing I noticed is that in the International > calling section, they still list "German Democratic Republic" and > "Germany, Federal Republic of" as separate countries. (I forgot to The reason is that the "Eastern portion of the Federal Republic of Germany" is still called the same way it was before it merged with the "Western portion". I suspect that the dialing rates are different too. AT&T's Reach out world plan only covers the Western Portion (country code 49). Spyros Bartsocas scb@cs.brown.edu
Claus Tondering <ct@dde.dk> (06/13/91)
linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison) writes: > Well, the June, 1991 Oakland phone book has hit the streets, with a > few notable things in it. > But anyhoo, the other thing I noticed is that in the International > calling section, they still list "German Democratic Republic" and > "Germany, Federal Republic of" as separate countries. > First of all, I think that Pacific Bell has had more than enough > notice of the reunification of Germany [...] Pacific Bell seems to be very slow in updating their international telephone information. I just returned from a visit to San Jose, and I was surprised to find that the local 1991 PacBell phone book lists various area codes for Denmark. Denmark did away with area codes in 1988/89 (and I would be very surprised if PacBell wasn't notified of the change), but that information hasn't made its way into the San Jose telephone book. Are other US phone books up-to-date in this matter? Claus Tondering E-Mail: ct@dde.dk Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
Charles Buckley <ceb@csli.stanford.edu> (06/15/91)
scb@cs.brown.edu (Spyros C. Bartsocas) wrote: > The reason is that the "Eastern portion of the Federal Republic of > Germany" is still called the same way it was before it merged with the > "Western portion". I suspect that the dialing rates are different > too. AT&T's Reach out world plan only covers the Western Portion > (country code 49). I had thought so too, and I don't know about Reach Out World, but on my recent bill, normal calls of the same length to the two zones were billed at exactly the same rate. Before unifacation, I remember this not being true.
RWICHARY%ESOC.BITNET@vm1.gatech.edu (06/17/91)
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)
Wolf PAUL <wnp@iiasa.iiasa.ac.at> (06/17/91)
linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison) writes: > First of all, I think that Pacific Bell has had more than enough > notice of the reunification of Germany that they could have made some > mention of Germany and then listed "the area formerly the G.D.R." or > something like that. Granted. But in a country that sends mail addressed to Vienna, Austria via Sydney or Melbourne, what do you expect? (I am not joking!) > Beyond that, though, what are the plans for bringing Germany under a > single country code? Have the plans been finalized and a date set, or > is it all still up in the air? It seems clearly unacceptable to have > Berlin a united city in a unified German nation, but with two country > codes. [apologies if this has been covered recently] I think it is mostly a financial problem. There are problems which ***to the citizens*** of the former GDR are much more pressing than the issue of country codes, and there does not seem enough money even for those things without raising taxes rather more dramatically than the citizens of the former FRG are willing to put up with. For the time being, quite a few things just continue as they have always been, Postal Codes and Car Tags come to mind. The former FRG and GDR continue to use their old Postal Codes, with FRG-Codes prefixed with "W" (West), and GDR Codes prefixed with "O" (Ost=East). And even newly registered cars from the former GDR are recognizable by the fact that their license tags do not look like the FRG tags, even though they now sport the international code "D" instead of "DDR". Symbolic changes were important in Germany during the year leading up to unification, and for a short time thereafter; now reality has caught up with the people, and symbols are the last thing folks worry about. W.N.Paul, Int. Institute f. Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg--Austria PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 INTERNET: wnp@iiasa.iiasa.ac.at FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa!wnp HOME: +43-2236-618514 BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@aearn.BITNET
rcbudd@rhqvm19.vnet.ibm.com (Richard Budd) (06/17/91)
Linc Madison wrote in Telecom Digest V11 #448: > But anyhow, the other thing I noticed is that in the International > calling section, they still list "German Democratic Republic" and > "Germany, Federal Republic of" as separate countries. > Beyond that, though, what are the plans for bringing Germany under a > single country code? Have the plans been finalized and a date set, or > is it all still up in the air? It seems clearly unacceptable to have > Berlin a united city in a unified German nation, but with two country > codes. At last check, Germany was still divided into two country telephone codes and two series of postal zip codes (49 and "W" respectively for western Germany, 37 and "O" for eastern Germany). There are two difficulties holding up the unification of post office and telephone coding. First is the state of the eastern German telephone system. It is going to take several years and hundreds of millions of deutsch marks to bring a telephone system with no major improvements since the 1950's up to western German telecom standards. There is also the fact that the East German telephone system was designed to allow the Stasi (the secret police) easy access to conversations from any East German lucky enough to have recived permission from the government to have a phone. Secondly, there is the problem of redundant zip and area codes between the eastern and western portions of the country (i.e. 8000 is both Munich and Dresden). We have heard so much about the time required to split northern New Jersey into 201 and 908 area codes, and 908 had not been used anywhere else. Because the Deutsche Bundespost (the post office) also operates the telephone system, it would be in the best interest to solve the zip and area code problem together and allow a decent period of time to have 78 million Germans and God knows how many others accommodate themselves to it. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has said it would take Germany at least twelve years to incorporate the five new federal states from what was once East Germany into the Federal Republic, twice the time it took West Germany to integrate the Saar in 1951-57. Bear in mind, this week the Parliament is finally going to decide whether to put the national government and ministries in Bonn or Berlin! I will check my German contacts from time to time on the status of the unified German telephone system and will report back to TELECOM Digest. Richard Budd | Internet: rcbudd@rhqvm19.vnet.ibm.com VM Systems Programmer | Bitnet : klub@maristb.bitnet IBM - Sterling Forest, NY | Phone : (914) 578-3746
HOEQUIST@bnr.ca (Charles Hoequist) (06/20/91)
Just to add some information about German government activity in getting phone service to the Five New Bundeslaender, as they are referred to there: As has been pointed out, people have started using cellular phones to bring their connections with them. This should intensify, as the German federal govt. granted a mobile phone license to a private company (Mannesmann Mobilfunk), the first time anybody's been allowed to compete with the post/telephone monopoly Telekom.There are plans to grant a second private license this year, but restricted to the F.N.B. (are they afraid of some wireless-telephone entrepeneur beating Telekom on its home turf?) This could lead to the F.N.B. using wireless phone almost exclusively for the immediate future, a definite reversal of the situation elsewhere, where wireless is for gadget lovers and yuppies. To improve the wire infrastructure, the German federal government has budgeted 55 billion DM from now through 1997 (about US$32.3 billion right now). This is certainly a low figure, however, as the 1991 improvements budget has already had close to two billion marks added to it. Don't look for anything like the MFJ taking place in Germany, though; Telekom's monopoly is written into the constitution. I can only assume there was some sort of narrow interpretation of the relevant clause in order to allow the wireless competition. Charles Hoequist hoequist@bnr.ca BNR Inc. PO Box 13478 Research Triangle Park NC 27709-3478, USA 919-991-8642 [Moderator's Note: Now that is what we need here in the USA: A constitutional amendment declaring there is but One True Telephone Company and that the others are unconstitutional. :) PAT]