-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 03:36 PM 4/11/97 -0700, Martin Minow wrote:
According to an article in the Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet http://www.svd.se/svd/ettan/ettan_97-04-11/narkotikapolisen.html, the Stockholm narcotics police has asked the national police and State Prosecutor to require that purchasers of a new telephone card used for mobile telephones be registered, and that the police have access to the purchaser database. "Since the card is purchased anonymously, the owner cannot be determined, which makes wiretapping impossible."
This week's Economist has an article on how the Italian national phone system is making lots of money marketing GSM phones fed by cards that can be bought for cash. It expands the market for such phones. I mentioned a few weeks ago, that Omnitel (a new PCS operator in the NYC vicinity is selling (and heavily promoting) its no contract, no credit check, card fed phone. The phones and cards (after you buy the phone cards, you call in the cards to an operator to add credit to the account) are available all over the area. The phone costs $99 (after rebate). Yesterday, as I was walking past a Radio Shack, I noticed that they are also selling a competing card fed PCS phone with the contradictory name of Tracphone. I love Capitalism. It's easy to see why New York PCS operators would turn in this direction. They won expensive PCS franchises and have to spend big bucks to tower the vicinity. It would be nice for them if they could get an income stream to help pay part of the interest. But there's a problem. Cellular providers NYNEX/Bell Atlantic and AT&T are offering phones for $15/month which work throughout the BOSWASH megaplex (and nationwide with roaming charges) meanwhile the PCS vendors just cover NYC and Northern New Jersey. They need to offer something else. The benefit of card fed phones to vendors is obvious. Suddenly, the 20-40% of the population that can't (or doesn't want to) qualify for a credit-checked cellular account can just pony up the cash and walk out with one. A real privacy benefit as well. If the authorities can't keep anonymous people from getting accounts in such a regulated industry, it is hard to imagine how they expect to bar anonymous accounts in an unregulated system like the Net. DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBM1A3MYVO4r4sgSPhAQH6wgQAld4wPBQhFbSWptR30Piczw408IIUKSBO UPH/p+NRGHvlkuKrG20s3Y6e7k8qFoK+0L00/iaINtemoEb3POgO+MdkB22KSlto huxivV6pfT6fC90R09v5uSuGv7yveGbsLjwo47NQNoAVjM1G/P5OiJ3c49nqPXb+ r+nGqc+K4u4= =UBks -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----