[12005] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
AT&T - access from where ? Commercial and not educational ?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph W. Stroup)
Sat Apr 30 05:02:52 1994
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 1994 00:35:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Joseph W. Stroup" <nettech@crl.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com, "Joseph W. Stroup" <nettech@crl.com>
Well here is the line up folks....
MCI
Sprint
AT&T
And more to follow. No I am not talking about picking a long distance
company. I am talking about the Ameritech/Slime hey providers connect to
us? We have modems in all the areas we would charge you a fortune to get
to. We are of course your friend. Let us be your front end processor.
Right, last year Ameritech would drag their feet on providing "quality
basic Services" to Internet providers. Many peole had problems getting
even the most basic of service. Forget ISDN and other stuff. If you
wanted to wait and play no problem but, if you needed it to make money
you were stuck. Now all of a sudden the RBOC wants to be our friend. This
after what change of heart.
Let me get this straight. We the provider connect into Ameritech/Slime
and they do this because they can't go cross lata (yet). Then there will
be some BS charge from the RBOC (the exist for this) and then the
providers charge on top. IE: We can provide you access to areas that we
cost prohibitive before. Right. So you get your customers hooked up
through the RBOC and at the very least they know who you are selling to.
The law changes, RBOC can provide LD services cross lata and poof - there
goes your business. Takes big ones. These companies are not our friends
they are trying to pull any con they can dream up to get this data
business and it would be in the best interest of ALL providers to stay
away from this deal.
What NEVER ceases to amaze me is why ANS or Merit did not announce a deal
where one or both were the first to join this adventure. I mean its right
up their crack (I mean niche). Frame Relay, T-3 , ISDN and even shell
account access all from the people who claimed to need total education
only one year ago. The company that takes weeks to build Centrex tables
that a 4 yr old could do in minutes.....
I have to admit , I have read Gordon Cooks articles on the ANS NSF thing
for along time. I can gurantee you that I will be writing about this
little crack in the wall for quite sometime to come.
Oh where oh where is the Univ. of Michigan person who is the NSF board
member? Very silent , I'll bet.
Now on the subject of AT&T or (ATTACK) as well call them. The people with
the death star as their logo ----- Where does AT&T gets its commercial
connectivity from ? Why a regional of course. And is AT&T a CIX member?
Hell no! Why ? Why should they be, they have gotten away with it for a
long time. Hey AT&T, with the Billion you have..where is your CIX
membership fee ? Any comments about that? AT&T mail to a CIX site but,
not a CIX member , not bad....... This is a slime covered little highway
we are trying to build. Hopefully the RBOC's and LD companies will be oil
spots in the road.
Joseph Stroup
