RE: Using local MTA re: tlug: Naive VM question

["Jonathan Byrne--3Web" <jq@example.com>]

-----Original Message-----
$B:9=P?M(B : Kei Furuuchi <kfur@example.com>
$B08@example.com(B : tlug@example.com <tlug@example.com>


> Subscription right is not a bribe but a bond which NTT does not buy
>back. The bonds are traded somewhere in the market. Maybe Bricks is a

A peculiar sort of a bond, one that only loses value from the day you buy
it.  It is also completely erroneous to call it a bond.  If it were a bond,
NTT could not unilaterally cancel your subscription right, but if you
suspend your phone service and that period of suspension exceeds five years,
that is exactly what they will do.  And of course, if I sell my subscription
right to a third party who does not immediately use it, five years from the
time it was last used, NTT cancels it.Your subscription "right" is actually
no right at all.

>brokerage company that deals the bonds so it can offer derivative like
>monthly rent. So I like to know what are the selling and buying prices
>of it in the market? Then you can decide if it is a better deal.

Bricks does not usually deal in phone lines, although they sometimes will on
request.  Primarily, they are a service agent that receives a commission
from NTT for sales of ISDN services.  They also do database consulting and
things like that.

In a slight aside, for anyone who buys an NTT subscription right from
someone else, if you're not buying from a company that deals in phone lines,
make sure you have reasonable confidence in the person you sell it to.  If
you buy the line and it has outstanding charges on it that are not paid
before you take ownership, guess who they will come after to get the money?
That's right - you, the new owner, are liable for any money owed on that
subscription right.

> NTT used to charge subscription right to cellular telephones too. But,
>there was market competition from other private companies. And those

>custom. But, satellite telephone like Iridium can make good competiton
>against NTT? Iridium costs 50USD for basic fee all over the world and
>is going to operate this september, I believe. Japan is not a
>developing country which can take advantage of satellite telephone
>system. Japan is full of unnecessary infrastructures.


I'm not familiar with this at all, can you tell me more about it?  Do you
know if it works for data communications as well?  And is there a per-minute
fee above the $50 per month, or is that flat-rate dialing?

Back in the pre-breakup days, the U.S. phone company as referred to as "Ma
Bell," a reference derived from a notorious female gangster in the 1920s or
1930s (somebody correct me if I have the time frame wrong here) known as Ma
Barker.  Now, of course, Ma Bell is gone and they have a bunch of baby Bells
instead.  Can anybody come up with a good nickname like that for NTT,
something with a gangster nuance? :-)

Jonathan