covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) (07/07/89)
re 9#205, Marvin Sirbu <ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu> >Note that, at the current exchange rate of approximately 2DM/$US, the monthly >base charge is about $60/month, and the usage charge is about $0.92 per >minute. >This is at least twice the comparable charges in the U.S. Yes it is, but it's quite in line with other charges in Germany. Note that a long distance call over 62 miles (100 km) is about 60 cents a minute, whereas we can call coast to coast for 25 cents a minute. The cellular charge includes the rate for a call to anywhere in Germany, so the marginal usage cost (except on local calls) is actually pretty close to U.S. rates. The landline rate must be set so high to discourage calling: it's quite hard to get a landline call through during peak hours. In the U.S. the grade of service in the public network is usually better than P.01 (one out of 100 call attempts will get a circuits busy rejection) and businesses usually engineer their private networks at P.05 or better (one in twenty fails). In Germany, I don't know what the busy hour design is, but it seems like it's around P.50 (one out of two calls will get a circuits busy). I've had to try ten times to get a landline call through from Stuttgart to Munich at the peak time in the mid afternoon. (That would be P.90, but it can't be that bad.) /john