[2181] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Charging for low-end services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian Lloyd)
Wed Jan 29 12:30:08 1992
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 92 09:26:30 PST
From: brian@lloyd.com (Brian Lloyd)
To: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: brian@lloyd.com
There are two approaches to charging the user: fixed fee and usage
based fee. Most of the regionals have opted for fixed fees on the
order of $150-$250/mo for 9.6Kbps service. This is reasonable
considering that the network is based on leased lines and the costs to
operate a network are relatively fixed and the 9.6Kbps port is not
being shared with other users.
But I must applaud CERFNet for offering usage-based charging. This
makes great sense when the resource (the dial-in port) is being
shared. The port costs N dollars per month whether it is used or not.
If you have M users using the port equally they each should pay N/M.
If the usage is unequal the pay should be proportional to the usage.
Now there is a problem with usage based charging because terminal
servers do not do a good job of accounting for connect time.
Rectifying that problem is the subject of discussion on
auth-acct@merit.edu (if you are interested in terminal server user
authentication, authorization, and accounting, send mail to
auth-acct-request@merit.edu). I would love to hear how CERFNet is
handling their accounting.
Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN Lloyd & Associates
Principal and Network Architect 3420 Sudbury Road
brian@lloyd.com Cameron Park, CA 95682
voice (916) 676-1147 -or- (415) 725-1392
