Earlier, Tony Li wrote: % I suspect that Ran is thinking of phones that are % intentionally partitioned from the rest of the phone % network for security purposes.
Maybe, depending on what you mean. I'll try to explain. Having lived abroad in several parts of the world, I'll just note that many countries *by default* disable both inbound and outbound international calling to all ordinary (e.g. non-governmental) residential or commercial PSTN lines. Those telephones work fine within the country -- or within some set of governmentally-approved countries, but simply are not globally reachable. They might appear to have a globally-unique phone number even, but the connectivity doesn't actually exist. Example: in some places, one has to obtain special permission from the administration there to receive or place international telephone calls. Most people and companies do not have that permission. I suspect most people haven't bothered to ask for permission. The usual thing is to walk to an office of the local telephone operator and use a special "international phone booth" in the operator's office building, after producing acceptable identification and providing up-front payment for the international telephone call. Additionally, due to governmental policies or regulations in one or another country, there are some countries that choose to not have full interconnection with certain other countries, although they might have full interconnection with some 3rd set of countries. Apparently some folks here are surprised at this. I've seen it in enough places that I am no longer surprised when I see it. Yours, Ran -- to unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body. archive: <http://psg.com/lists/rrg/> & ftp://psg.com/pub/lists/rrg
