Somehow, I suspect different standards for outside-the-USA telephone
> hardware (codecs and line characteristics), line behavior (ringing,
> supervision) and "proprietary considerations" (i.e. tariff and other
> barriers to protect local equipment vendors) has a much stronger
> effect on relative costs of CO equipment...
Before allowing international dialing by subscribers, the Bell Labs did extensive tests with real customers to determine if they would be able to understand tones from foreign countries for such things as busy signals, ringing tones, etc. They found U.S.A. customers were usually able to understand them without much difficulty. Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com