dean@truevision.com (Dean Riddlebarger) (06/14/90)
One of our employees is about to embark on a fairly long [roughly six months] stint in Europe, and I'd like him to be able to stay in touch with the office through our internal email setup. Line quality issues notwithstanding, I suppose that I could simply have him dial into the server from his foreign location and conduct a standard remote login session. But I suspect that there should be a better way to handle this from a cost and efficiency standpoint. So, for all in the group who are savvy in international telecom: What recommendations can you make for this situation? Should I try to find a foreign server for him, and forward his mail back and forth? Should I investigate one of the commercial mail carriers like attmail, again with a local forward from our site? Or is direct dial likely to be an acceptable alternative given the time-frame and expected volume? I'll summarize email replies. Thanks. <:> Dean Riddlebarger <:> MIS Manager - Truevision, Inc. <:> [317] 841-0332 <:> uucp: uunet!epicb!dean dean@truevision.com
0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) (06/16/90)
In Digest Vol.10, Iss.434, Riddlebarger writes: >One of our employees is about to embark on a fairly long [roughly six >months] stint in Europe.... >... Should I try to find a foreign server for him, and forward his mail > back and forth? Should I investigate one of the commercial mail > carriers like attmail, again with a local forward from our site? Or > is direct dial likely to be an acceptable alternative given the > time-frame and expected volume? Anticipating there will be a significant volume to transfer, and that it will be daily (or perhaps even several times daily), batching the files will certainly result in the least on-line time. In particular, you should compress that files to cut that time in about half (at least for text files and such compressible stuff) ... provided you get one of the newer compression programs, not the old, original .ARC that some mini makers now peddle. Get .PAK or .ZIP, or any other you can find that uses the Ziv-Lempel compression algorithm. With that, you can figure the daily minutes of use as half the time you'd use otherwise..making allowance that your correspondent will have some time hanging on to get started and wind up with you. If you want to use dial-up, be sure to transfer the batched file with a powerful error-correcting algorithm that "streams," like ZMODEM. Now, each of the commercial E-Mail carriers has offerings of access deals back to the States via the national packet network of the country, but as in telephony, the arangements can be beaurocratic and sometimes quite expensive. You can send your correspondent off with a 2400bps "hayes-type" modem, because its modulation plan is actually CCITT V.26ter, and it will com- municate either direct to you or to European modems that meet V.26ter or V.22bis. These are just the CCITT way of saying "full duplex 2400 or 1200 bps." Where the bureaucracy builds is in the electric interface spec to the local dial-up phone line, and if you get into conversation with the PTT of the country, objections that the "foreign-made modem" isn't good enough are (at least until 1992) rather likely. (This despite the fact that MANY of the modems supplied in Europe are from U.S. factories, with nothing but a special label that shows the PTT"s engineers found it OK.) To attempt an answer to this, MCIMail promotes a Swiss-based device called the "Worldmodem." It's a VERY expensive piece of hardware that has agreements for a number of nations and a rather expensive plug-in you also buy to make it work ... you kind of rent its use in addition to buying it. What's nice about it is that the plug-ins are the PTT- authorized "modular plug" for each nation. For people traveling from nation to nation, this is rather nice. Hotels even have them to rent casually (at a VERY high rate) in some nations. If you can find a cooperating partner with a local server that's with- in local flat-rate calling range, then maters might be eased and cheaper for you to avoid the transatlantic batching. But if your European nation is a fully-metered one (like Germany), watch out for the local phone bill! Whatever you do, send your person off with a bit of Radio Shack modular extender receptacles (the kind used to plug two phone cors together) a couple of spade lug-ended short modular cords and some alligator clips, plus a couple of screwdrivers. That way, when and while the bureaucracy is confusing the matter wiht all sorts of delays to getting in business, your person can indulge in a little simple "phreaking" that will find you can just clip onto an analog phone line (Oh, be SURE to dial PULSE only ... no tone dialing!) and get through till the smoke clears. For all the great talk promised, many people find some "phreaking" is needed if you really mean to get through ... at least for a while. If you can find a local corespondent with a server, they usually can find someone local who's quite adept at "getting things done," by some "phreaking" or otherwise. But send you person hardware-equipped, as the largest signle problem can be getting the matching U.S. modular plugs amd cords for the modem connections. (Sometimes there are minor advantages if you travel to underdeveloped nations. There, you just get a hookup of whatever you brought and you blast away. Those nations have neither the people to police nor the office to harass you.) If you want to go off using the "prepared packet-access offering" of one of the U.S. E-Mail carriers, fine, but it risks not getting up as fast as you're led to believe and costing you quite a bit. Just like here, the "advice" of local Telco "experts" `is often confusing and contradictory ... and almost certainly expensive!