>Back about 4-5 years ago, internet access of any kind outside of a school
>was hourly and pretty expensive if you spent much time there, but it quickly
>dropped to 15~20$ a month for unlimited access and that remains the
>standard. I figured the rest of the world was keeping up with the advance
>of technology, but forgot that prices are somewhat less market-driven in
>places with economies that are less free or with utilities that are
>state-owned or controlled.
Wasn't there in fact discussions floating around in US some time ago
that the telephone operators in US were considering moving into pay
per minute in local calls too? Has there been any more news about it?
Here where I live it used to be so that outside "office hours" (7-17)
the local calls were "flat rate" in that no matter how long the call
took, it cost only half a FIM or so (1 FIM ~ 0.15 USD). So I could
keep the line open for whole weekend, and it still cost the same.
But recently (last year?) they changed it, so it isn't possible
anymore. The reason is simple: many people really kept their lines
open whole weekend or whole night (thanks to the internet boom), and
still paid only that measly 0.5 FIM for it. That's poor business for
the tele companies, because those open lines (both analog and ISDN)
still reserve resources from the switches, even if there is no data
going in there. I'm sure many US operators have the same problem.
BTW another thing to consider is that "local call area" in here mean a
much much wider area than in US generally. As far as I know in many US
cities alone there are several "local call areas", while here a local
call area usually consists of several cities (albeit smaller cities),
and geographically a MUCH wider area. But of course that doesn't
matter if the ISP you like to use is next to you in your local call
area.
