From: snuffy@zelator.in-berlin.de (Ronald_J. Bartle)
Subject: Re: Information Wanted Re Modem Use in UK
Organization: Puplic-Access-Xenix-System
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 05:45:00 GMT

In <1992Dec16.102120.17567@bristol.ac.uk> smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:

>In article <168BD1214D.ELURONA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> ELURONA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (R. Elul) writes:
>>Could anyone tell me what the policy is (both official and unofficial)
>>regarding the use of 'non-approved' modems in the UK? 

>It is legal to buy, sell, or own them.  It is illegal to connect them
>to British Telecom (and other common carrier) lines; they may be
>legally used only on isolated (from the CCs) privately-owned wire.  In
>practice, a lot of people do use them illegally, as they are incredibly
>cheaper than BABT-approved ones.  I'd guess that most organisations use
>approved ones, but I'd just about bet that most personally-owned ones
>are unapproved (and, I repeat, thus illegal to use).  It's certainly
>true that most of the cheap modems advertised in home-computing mags are
>non-approved.

>This does not necessarily mean that they are 'worse' in any way.  The
>British modem market is fairly small, the process of getting BABT
>approval is fairly costly, and so makers of cheap modems (usually for
>the US market) often don't feel that they could sell enough of the
>things (or keep their prices down sufficiently) to justify going for
>BABT approval and trying to get into the UK market.

>Functionally speaking, they usually work.  At 300 baud and below the UK
>uses different signalling frequencies than the US, so 300 baud modems
>don't travel well.  (Actually, might be 110 rather than 300 -- been a
>long time since I had to think about anything as slow as even 300, and
>I'm working from memory.  Believe it's 300, though.)  At 1200 and above
>the standards are identical and US and UK modems should interwork
>perfectly.  

>Split-rate 1200/75 (you type to the computer at 75 baud, it answers
>back at 1200) used to be popular over here and virtually doesn't exist
>in the States, so you don't often find non-approved 1200/75 modems.
>But then not many people use it any more anyway.  The upsurge in file
>up/down-loading has meant a move to identical speed in both directions;
>split-rate only makes real sense in normal 'terminal session' type use,
>and even there a really fast typist can overrun it unless you've got
>buffering in either the modem or the terminal (emulator).

>>Also, what is the
>>purpose of the different make/break ratio in Europe (as compared to the US) I
>>successfully dialed out using the US setting.

>The 'official standard' timing of dialing pulses (for the old
>mechanical exchanges) is different on different sides of the pond.  In
>practice, though, the mechanisms have to be designed to cope with a
>certain amount of variation, so it's believable that (at least most) UK
>exchanges could handle US timing, and vice versa.

>-- 
>Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
> P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!uknet!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132

Paul - what actually happens;(conviscations and fines etc) whe
somebody is cought with a unauthorised modem in use on telecom
lines!!?? how serious are the consequences - does telekomm invest a
lot of time and cash in tracking down unauthorised useres and can one
claim like here in germany that one no lonmger has the lconstitutional
guaranteed freedom of expression when one is a contributor to
newspapers per modem and cant afford the very edxpensive authorised
modems - in past now they are cheaper!
  People need to communicate and so they need to do so the way they
  can and ignore the regulations except for like generally when we
  disregard laws regulations we need to be aware of poss .
  consequences!


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