[1374] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Volume-sensitive charging
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.e)
Wed Sep 18 23:08:50 1991
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 22:04:41 CDT
From: francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Joe Abernathy's message of Wed, 18 Sep 91 19:57:49 CDT <9109190057.AA07197@magic322.chron.com>
Reply-To: francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
Joe Abernathy <edtjda@chron.com> writes:
>So, how can one design a system to gain the benefits (savings) of
>doing it the FTS way, without the pain?
Maybe if you monitored individual usage without charging for it.
I mean. Monitoring the traffic is easy. Flagging for large amounts
of traffic is easy. Having people tell you in person or in writing if
they expect to exceed their "large amount" level is easy. Notifying
somebody who's been flagged is easy. Remembering that you didn't do
anything that should have been flagged is easy.
The monitoring & flagging would be automagic, almost free. You'd need
1 employee whose duties would include telling the computer when not to
flag--which, if the flag levels are set sensibly, could be only an
occasional thing; and would never be difficult--and reacting to
unexplained high traffic levels. Since the first duty is so minor, it
could be handled by, say, a secretary, or some flavor of sysadmin
(depending, probably, on the size of the organization); since the
latter is pretty much part of the sysadmin's duties anyway (system
security), that's already taken care of.
Of course, you'd have to be sure not to accept notifications by email
or some such; that would defeat the purpose. :-)
All this is assuming that your system can monitor net traffic & know
who's responsible--should be doable, I think. Yes? No?
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| Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.|
| Department of Mathematics |=============================================|
| University of Chicago | Until you stalk and overrun, |
| francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | you can't devour anyone. -- Hobbes |
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