OTT OTE NET COSTS

It's dawning on me how lucky I was in the US with phone and internet billing. Here in Greece with the monopoly OTE phone company, it's easy to see why Greece is bottom of the European charts for 'net usage.

Exchange Rate: €1 to US$1.29 / €1 to UK£0.69

First a comparison with our Freedom Frying frères over in la belle France:

25 euros a month signs you with an ISP for ISDN all year, 24-hour coverage - *and* no additional connection charges each time online.

To boot, ISDN line rental is the same €15 a month regardless of 64 or 125kb.

Ergo, 24-hr coverage @ 128kb works out at €180.00 for line rental plus €300 per annum for 24-hr ISP coverage. Grand total: €480 for the year/US$619/£331.20.

Greece

ISDN 64kb line rental: €28 per month + charge for every connection (2 charges if you go for 128kb)

Plus ISP rental

Over the year, line rental at €336; 24-hr connection (just on 64kb) @ €0.073 per minute = €4.38 per hour, €104.12 per day, €38,368.80 for the year.

Literally grand total with OTE for the year: €38,704.80 /US$49929.19 /£26,706.31 (less ISP rental).

One hardly credits those sums with even approaching correct calculation.