[2449] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Billing philosophy...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Fri Feb 28 19:36:47 1992
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 92 18:40:42 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: jhaverty@us.oracle.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Jack Haverty's message of Fri, 28 Feb 92 15:07:54 PST <9202282307.AA04676@rivendell.us.oracle.com>
>From: Jack Haverty <jhaverty@us.oracle.com>
>The question is not whether or not to have usage-based pricing, or how to
>technically implement such a thing. The question is whether or not the
>internet is commercializable, i.e., could survive as a business, with its
>current product offerings (which happen to be flat-rate). There's lots of other
>issues too I expect - availability in various places, reliability, etc.
Sure, good points, perhaps I'm sour today but...
>I suspect the "All You Can Eat" restaurant market isn't
>commercially viable.
Ah, but in the (current) Interneteria you pay for different sized
plates to put your food on and can only go back so many times per
day...
>So, is "All You Can Eat" networking commercially viable as it is available
>today? If government funding were phased out (as in the US PO situation), would
>it survive? Or change to survive? Or ???
I suppose the point to make is that AYCE-N'ing developed out of
AYCE-LL (leased-lines) which the telcos have been vigorously offering
and developing as a service for decades now, and they (LL's) don't
seem to be going out of style (quite the opposite.)
If you're a big-ish voice phone user with two offices x-country
(whatever) you can hook two office PBX's up with a flat-rate leased
line and never pay measured rates again (between those offices.)
It's not that different, except in this case, largely due to govt
subsidy style (and breathtaking technological advance) a LOT of people
went out and bought "PBX"'s (i.e. routers and LANs) and hooked them up
over leased lines.
Maybe there's someone deep in the bowels of Telco,Inc beating
his/her/its chest and keening "How did we let THAT one get by?"
Then again, maybe not, a few tens of thousands of 56Kb and T1
monthlies would keep me fat and happy.
The main thing preventing more voice/pbx leased lines is the lack of
common providers which let you call all sorts of sites (and perhaps
economics, I don't know), not just your other office (which is fine
for big companies but of little use for smallish concerns,
particularly ones with just one office!)
But for this one (Internet) you just jack in and yer on.
It's the exception site that needs measured rates to reach, rather
than the rule.
I think that's mostly what's going on.
If someone wants to sell measured bits I suspect they'll do it because
they're in a different market niche (e.g. FDDI, connecting certain
international nets, services), not just as a remake of what we got
now.
There, now ya got me talking about it...hrmph.
-Barry Shein
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