[46] in resnet
How to join a net through NET
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joe Harrington)
Thu May 27 18:39:44 1993
Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 18:37:34 -0400
From: jh@flolab.mit.edu (Joe Harrington)
To: warlord@gza.com
Cc: akajerry@watson.ibm.com, resnet@MIT.EDU, ninjo@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Derek Atkins's message of Thu, 27 May 1993 18:02:43 -0400 <9305272202.AA09812@mary-chungs.aktis.com>
Cc: jh@MIT.EDU
Reply-To: jh@MIT.EDU
I was surprized about the common carrier issue as well. However, the
NET person was very clear on this when I prodded, and referred me to
the billing schedule already approved by the govt. This was last
fall, and I'm not sure if it was the Mass PUC or the FCC; I think it
was the former. So, unless you're prepared to sue a very major
company for your rights (or go before the PUC), be careful.
I can see their reasoning: a voice call isn't likely to last several
months. It can't possibly scale for them to allow a loophole where
data users can essentially lease a permanent point-to-point connection
for $20 a month or whatever. They depend on most of the people not
making calls most of the time. Since as a data user I can play
automatic games like hanging up and re-calling every n hours, so that
a progressive rate schedule would fail, their only recourse is to hit
me with a per-time charge. You have to admit that $.01/minute is
pretty minimal for almost anything other than permanent connections.
Compare it to the $.11/minute message unit charge on normal local
calls that a business pays. I'm sure that if the PUC or a court ruled
against them, they'd just add the $.01/minute to the voice charge,
too, or declare that the difference between a voice and a data circuit
was that a data circuit didn't have random digital noise added to it.
On the other hand, if the dialling is really fast, you could put
dial-when-needed code into the ISDN driver and save the money on the
95% of the time a permanent connection isn't in active use, and the
phone company would like you, too.
--jh--
