18 years ago one of my sons, Edward found himself in very Communist China when the Tiennamen Square troubles broke out. The Consulate wanted him to leave the country. He called me and asked for my advice. He complained his calls to the US were costing $5.00 a minute, each time, or $300 an hour. And were on open, monitored, circuits. Very stiff cost he couldn't afford from there. He was only making $150 a month.

So instead, at a prearranged time I would call his phone attached to his Toshiba 1000 through a battery powered modem (with the burgler tools I sent with him to disassemble Chinese non-RJ11 phones and use alligator clips to make the connection), set up Procom software on his Dos machine set for ATA. While I called him from my Radio Shack computer and modem set at ATD but calling manually by voice through the local and international operator. Then when we connected - direct telephone line to telephone line at a flakey 1,200 baud - I would do Kermit up, and he Kermit down so we could exchange pre composed pages of text in compressed ascii at only about $15-$20 each time. This was under the nose of the Chinese Secret Service who had armed guards at all fax systems in China to prevent uncensored communications.There were no commercial 'networks' then. Only costly voice telephones. They never figured out what we were doing or how.

So,advised by me, (I judged he would be ok if he were careful - that they didn't seem to be bothering Americans) he stayed behind, the only American left in a city of 4 million, fell in love and married a Chinese teache where he was teaching. One thing led to another, and they now live here,in Colorado Springs with kids, she is a citizen, is now the head of the Chinese Language program at the Air Force Academy. (as a teen she was a Red Guard in China, and her parents are retired Red Army colonel doctors, who were in a MASH type medical unit just north of the Yalu River in 1950 in the Korean War while I was sending them business from my 7th Cavalry outfit just south of the Yalu - they are now my in-laws)

Right now Ha Ning is in China with 47 AFA cadets on a language immersion trip. Halfway around the world from Colorado. Will be there for several weeks.

Last evening their young boys, our grandsons, wanted to call her in China. They missed her. They had the telephone number. They tried using their cell phone but they had trouble reaching her, and the call would have cost $2.00 a minute.

So I let them dial up with my Vonage VOIP (Voice over Internet) phone. They happily chatted for 20 minutes. And she remarked on how good was the connection.

I was curious what that call cost. So I accessed my account and looked it up.

The call cost $.20, or ONE PENNY a minute.

Are we connected world wide yet?

Eat your heart out Verizon.