[12604] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The CMU Internet Billing Service
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karl Denninger)
Tue May 24 04:39:41 1994
From: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
To: tdarcos@access.digex.net (Paul Robinson)
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 23:43:51 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: comp.org.eff.talk.usenet@decwrl.dec.com,
alt.politics.datahighway.usenet@decwrl.dec.com,
alt.internet.services.usenet@decwrl.dec.com, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <199405232141.AA05514@access3.digex.net> from "Paul Robinson" at May 23, 94 05:41:57 pm
> In article <0QhNu*rd0@fantasyfarm.com> bernie@fantasyfarm.com (Bernie
> Cosell) wrote:
> If you are paying for the size of the pipe you use, I suspect it does.
>
> : Look, there are two sides to the coin:
> : 1) the net is VERY cheap [as far as bandwidth goes], in which case
> : why are folk so up-in-arms about paying for the fair-share of
> : that bandwidth they consume?
>
> Because every time a proposal has been made to reduce or eliminate the
> classes of non-metered service in favor of metering (for example in
> local telephone calls) a *few* people got *insignificant* reductions in
> costs (like from $15.00 a month to $14.90), while *most* people paid a
> little more and *some* people paid *a lot* more.
You bet. Look at Ameritech here in Chicago. The quarter AFTER they
got rid of their flat-rate pricing OPTIONS (you could always OPT for
metered service here) I remember reading that they reported RECORD REVENUE.
Now, they CLAIMED that the "average" user would see a rate decrease, and
in fact probably still do.
I couldn't find a SINGLE person among my associates for which this was
true.
I do know that MY phone bill went from ~$60/monthly to $500.00! For the
SAME service! And I was nowhere near alone in this.
IF, in fact, the AVERAGE bill went down then revenues MUST DECREASE.
Remember, folks, its AVERAGES. Ie:
number of subscribers * average bill = total revenue
Therefore, they lied. Period.
--
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