[1054] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: internet consumer reports on state-wide IP networks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (tom@nisca.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Tue Jul 23 14:24:32 1991
To: "Kent W. England" <kwe2@bbn.com>
Cc: emv@ox.com, com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jul 91 08:43:50 -0400.
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 91 14:22:40 EDT
From: tom@nisca.acs.ohio-state.edu
Kent W. England writes:
>> The goal is to come up with Consumer Reports type ratings that would
>> allow the small high-tech business that's considering relocation to
>> determine where the best places to go are.
>
>If I were a small hi-tech businessperson, I would look to national
>service providers first. I don't think there is such a thing as a
>"state-wide" market much less "state-wide" services, except for a few
>visionary states like California and Pennsylvania.
Why would you look to the national service providers first?
In many cases that would be the most expensive and least flexible
route a small businessperson could take. There are many places
in the country that the national providers don't touch and therefore
make connection costs higher (regardless of the standard rate set).
The regionals are very viable providers and there are many state
networks that I think would be pretty unhappy that they might be
considered, as you suggest, not even in the market. For expamle,
Thenet (Texas), OARnet (Ohio), (etc, there are others). There are
in fact many "state-wide" services and a market for these services.
Take for example services provided by state governments. Here in
Ohio the State Dept of Administrative Services has very much expressed
interest in providing "state-wide" services to an "Ohio" market.
Efforts to coordinate library services such as Ohiolink (and again,
there are others) are primarily a state-wide effort.
>(And, besides, your ratings will be quite obsolete before the end of the
>calendar year.)
That, I agree with! This would be something very difficult to
maintain.
Tom
