0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) (02/19/91)
In an article about his (obvious) personal experiences in Cuba (Digest v11, iss129), David Lesher writes: > Ironically, however, the three "international" hotels in town all have > new Mitel systems ... just don't count on anything happening when you > dial "9." I can't help but recall from that remark a peripheral "phone experience" had on an early trade mission to Algeria. The Algerians are firmly in the Soviet orbit, and it seems the US pays out hard dol- lars, more than $500 million a year, for liquified natural gas to the Algerians, while they spend it all in Russia, not returning the trade one penny's worth. Our nominal task was to find any ways we might get some business with our "high tech," but so far as the Algerians were concerned, it was a real opportunity to "get the gringos." They ripped us right and left at every turn, and we could tell they were enjoying twisting the dirty capitalists' tails. It just so happened that the only hotel in Algiers suitable to put us up in was aptly describable as a "people's socialist palace" called the Hotel Aurassi. The Aurassi was a typically barren and un- finished heap of modern cubist concrete rubble, all bare gray cement and none of the visible gaps for amenities equipped. The only function- ing "restaurant" was the coffee shop, which lacked even the asphalt tiles on its rough cement floor, to give an indication of the state of the place. Being a quizzical telecom type, I found the elevator emergency phones had dials and signs in several languages saying that in event of an emergency, to dial 9 and a seven-digit number that proved to be thje outside lines of the hotel! Best they could do, I later found out, as ringdown equipment is something unknown in most such nations. A day or so into our visit into what must have been what Pancho Villa would have done to the gringos were he into foreign trade, there was an article in the Algiers paper loudly proclaiming that International Subscriber Dialing was working in Algiers. I couldn't resist the temptation, of course, so got into the elevator and dialed the published "01" for international, then "01" for North America, followed by my then current New Jersey area code and number ... et voila, madames et messieurs, my charming wife was speaking to me in the elevator at Algiers! I enjoyed a nice chat courtesy of the Algerian PTT, and then told everybody else on the trade mission, who all took nice long elevator rides that evening! (I sure hope the Algerian secret police don't read the Digest!)