jxh@certes.uucp (Jim Hickstein) (10/31/90)
Knowing the Moderator's feelings about extending electronic mail to the masses, I thought this would be an appropriate place to ask: What is available along these lines to my mother, who is a missionary in Japan? She is in a rural town about 100 miles north of Tokyo, but she uses a computer every single day, and can type even faster than I do. So, I figured the hard part is done. :-) Furthermore, my employer's wide-area network has an appearance (?) in Tokyo; a handful of Suns and VAXen with which I trade email traffic and files routinely. How do you get from a farm in Nishinasuno to Teradyne in Tokyo? Unfortunately, when asked about their local connections, hoping to hear of UUCP hops to major Japanese companies which are our customers, I heard a heart-rending tale of mail to a friend at Sony going back through Boston and LA to arrive, several hours later, 10 miles away on the other side of town. How can I help our Tokyo office to get better connected locally? What kind of standards are prevalent in Japan? (Bell 212A? V.22bis? V.32? PEP, even? (I hope, I hope)) What about local loops away out in the sticks? Are they obtainable? Are they usable? (This is why I want to use PEP.) What about commercial services such as the much-talked-about-in-here-lately ATT-Mail and MCI-Mail? Do they make this easy? Cheap? What's availble for free? What about third-party traffic on Amateur packet radio? I mean, she's out in the country, but this shouldn't be necessary. When I call her on the phone, we obviously are getting a fully digital channel on what I assume is the latest cable (TAT-8?) that lands in Sacramento on my end. It's not like she has a wet party line between her and the toll center that handles *those* calls: they sound better than most of the calls I make to Minnesota! (I love this business.)
tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) (11/05/90)
In article <14217@accuvax.nwu.edu>, jxh@certes.uucp (Jim Hickstein) writes: > What about third-party traffic on Amateur packet radio? Communicating with Japan via amateur radio on behalf of a third party is illegal. Of course, if you and your mom get ham tickets, then it is OK. The US has to have a third party traffic treaty with a particular country before you are allowed to communicate with someone there on behalf of a third party. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP