sham@arizona.edu (Shamim Zvonko Mohamed) (09/21/89)
In India the term for long distance is indeed STD. I'm not sure about
ISD, though. I may as well take this opportunity for some
reminiscences... the phone system is, of course, a government
monopoly under the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. They handle all
phone lines, trunks, telex, microwave links, etc.
Ah, the telephone service! Those memories... some areas in New Delhi
(where I grew up) have a waiting list of 10 years for a 'phone
connection. No DTMF dialing here, almost all the exchanges are
mechanical. (About 5 years ago a digital switch was introduced on a
trial basis - worked quite well, from what I remember.) In the summer
after almost every rainstorm thousands (I'm not exaggerating!) would
be knocked out.
One of my childhood memories is being taken to a crossbar exchange by
my father (he used to be in the telecom field and had a few cronies in
the Post and Telegraphs Department) and watching/listening to those
things. I was about 8 at the time and can't really remember the
details, though. :-(
My grandfather's phone was even more interesting - it was on a rural
exchange and had an operator that would complete calls by plugging
jacks on a board (don't know the jargon for this). The exchange itself
was about 6 miles away and every summer the line would be destroyed by
the monsoon. (This was about 5 years ago)
STD was introduced about 10 years ago, I think, and was more expensive
than the regular operator-assisted "trunk call." (To make one of those
you had to call a number and book the call at some priority, with the
cost increasing geometrically with higher priorities... it would often
be 4-6 hours for the call to go through at the affordable priorities)
The trunk call may still be cheaper than an STD call. The city codes
for STD calls are of variable length - for instance New Delhi is 11
but smaller towns have upto 4 digits.
Caveat: All of the above information is at least 3 years old.
Shamim Mohamed / {uunet,noao,allegra,cmcl2..}!arizona!sham / sham@arizona.edu
"Take this cross and garlic; here's a Mezuzah if he's Jewish; a page of the
Koran if he's a Muslim; and if he's a Zen Buddhist, you're on your own."
[Moderator's Note: 'STD' means Subscriber Trunk Dialing, for those who did
not know this abbreviation. It is a common enough phrase in some countries
which essentially means 'long distance' as we think of it here in the United
States. I might add to the above report, calling DA in India is quite a
chore at times also. I've been on 15 minutes to get a single number. PT]halliday@cc.ubc.ca (laura halliday) (09/21/89)
Here in Canada, our phone system is (almost) a clone of the American system. We even have the same country code. We don't say STD and ISD - we used to say DDD (Direct Distance Dialling), but now the phone book (Vancouver, B.C., anyway) just talks about 1+, 0+ and International calls. With the exception of Bell Canada in Ontario, Quebec and parts of the Arctic, each province has its own phone company. Some are private (e.g. B.C. Tel), while some are government-run, like Alberta Government Telephones. The phone companies cooperate to provide long distance service within Canada through Telecom Canada, while overseas access is through Teleglobe Canada. There are a few independent phone companies, in cities like Prince Rupert, B.C. and Edmonton, Alberta. We don't have any choice on long distance carriers, though some companies are trying to change that. The Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), our analog of the FCC, flatly refuses such requests. Phone costs here in B.C. are moderate compared to American ones. Connecting a line costs $23.50 (all costs are in Canadian dollars; the exchange rate is currently about $C1.00 = $US0.85), while the monthly charge for a line in Greater Vancouver is about $14.00. Long distance within Canada is pricey; Vancouver to Toronto during the day is $0.68 a minute, while Vancouver to New York is $0.63 a minute. I never did figure that one out...Call setup time is good, and line quality is usually good. Service is fairly quick - you may have to wait a week for your phone to be connected if it's a busy time of the month. We have the option of buying our own phones, or renting them from the phone company. Custom calling is available in areas with electronic switching, and costs (and works) about the same as in the U.S. B.C. Tel have just introduced a long distance deal, with the poetic name `Between Friends', where you pay a fixed monthly rate for half an hour of long distance, then get a discount on further long distance. It's good deal if you make a lot of long distance calls sufficiently far away, since the additional minutes cost you $0.18 within B.C., and $0.33 for the rest of Canada and the U.S. ...laura