Thank God for VOIP

[John Tully <tully at mikrotik.com>]

If you can beleive it, it cost $4/m to call the US from Latvia in 
1995.  Who can you blame it on?  Cable and Wireless UK, also they control 
many telephone companies from colonies of the old British Empire, they 
extend and continue the colonial oppression in the form of getting high 
tariffs for International calls.

Now it is a little better, the Finnish own the Latvian telephone company -- 
we are down to $1-2/m.  Thank God for VOIP.

John


At 10:49 AM 5/15/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 09:33:38AM +0000, ALAIN PATRICK AINA wrote:
> > FYI
> >
> > One minute call  from TOGO  to :
> >
> > Nigeria: 300 F CFA ( 0.5$)
> >
> > France: 700 F CFA (1.2$)
> >
> > UK:       500 F CFA (0.8$)
> >
> > Source: TOGO TELECOM's Directory 2003
>
>That's interesting. From that, I'd say the call to Nigeria may be routed by
>land.
>
>When I lived in Belize, a call to the U.S. cost the equivalent of US$1.60
>per minute, and so was a direct-dialled call to any other country in Central
>America. But an *operator* connected call to neighbouring Mexico or
>Guatemala was cheaper than the direct-dial call! I think they hadn't worked
>out how to to build a routing plan in the switch.
>
>The silly thing was, a call from the U.S. to Belize was less than a third of
>the cost of a call from Belize to the U.S. A market for "callback" services
>sprung up, which were immediately outlawed by the government. Providing or
>marketing such a service was made a *criminal* offence so I heard; that is,
>people were threatened with being put in prison.
>
>But it shows that the $1.60 profiteering rate can't be blamed on the
>satellite providers... it was the government-sponsored private monopoly
>which was making all the money. BTL made a larger profit per head of
>population that British Telecom in the UK.
>
>Regards,
>
>Brian.
>
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