Re: Arguments wanted....

[Christian Huitema <[e-mail]>]

=> >> No, thats not the point. The new situation is that all PRMD's
=> >> have to be registered by the federal communications office and
=> >> are no longer allocated by the various ADMDs. This is actually
=> >> a good thing and should have always been the case (up to now
=> >> only ADMDs had to be registered).
=> >> 
=> >> However to actually obtain a PRMD you have to commit (via a
=> >> signed document) that you will -not- use the PRMD to relay
=> >> traffic between other MD's (in two years time this will 
=> >> aply to -all- PRMDs).
=> 
=> This sounds very restrictive, I cannot imagine this surviving a challenge
=> in court, but then CH is, well, different perhaps.....

Such restrictions would be forbiden if CH was a member of the European
Community. Electronic mail is a value added telecommunication service, and
thus fall under strict "free trade, no regulations allowed whatsoever" rules.
In fact, it may well be the case that some of the treaties between CH and the
EC result in importing this free trade enforcement -- your lawyers could check.

But there is yet a much better answer. As the PRMD/ADMD business is strictly
related to one transmission standard, i.e. X.400, the correct answer is to
drop X.400 and just use TCP-IP, SMTP, RFC-822 and MIME!

Christian Huitema