[40] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
competition
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roy Smith)
Mon Oct 29 15:38:17 1990
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 15:38:31 EST
From: Roy Smith <roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Assuming you buy into the capitalist manefesto, the best way to ensure
the best product at the lowest price is to generate marketplace competition.
But, in order to generate competition, it has to be easy for a customer to
get pissed at his current provider and go with another; if the threat of
doing so isn't real, the competition doesn't really exist.
So, let me get to my question. Given the current state of technology,
assume that I'm a T1 customer of PSINet and decide I don't like the service
I'm getting. How hard would it be to switch to UUNet's network, without
any disruption in service? If you prefer, pick any other pair of providers
you want, I just chose those two out of thin air. Is it as easy as calling
up Sprint and making them my dial-1 long distance company instead of AT&T?
Could I have it done tomorrow? In a month? At the expiration of a 3-year
contract? Would all the routing software just magically notice the new
connectivity and update the routing tables so my users wouldn't notice any
difference?
