[46290] in Cypherpunks
Re: Guerilla Internet Service Providers (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jim bell)
Tue Jan 2 14:56:28 1996
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 1996 09:51:24 -0800
To: Felix Lee <flee@teleport.com>
From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
At 08:27 PM 1/1/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Jim Choate:
>> If you live in the Austin, TX area I will setup a dedicated slip for you at
>> only $100/mo.
>
>in the Portland Oregon area, the price ranges from $234/year to
>$1750/year for unlimited ppp access. (I have no idea how long the
>$234/year is going to stay in business. that won't even cover the
>cost of a phone line.)
It seems to me that phone line costs are turning into a floor price for
Internet access, when they shouldn't really be. The main asset telephone
companies have, right now, is in RIGHTS OF WAY. Put an ISP in a business
park that allows you to run your own dedicated copper pairs, and you've
bypassed $25/month/line business phone line charges.
At some point, individual urban and suburban blocks could easily be
"guerilla re-wired" for ISP access without serious trenching, etc. The
phoneco would still be involved, but in a far lower-profit mode, as the
supplier of a single T1 to a multi-block area.
