[2683] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Settlements
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stan Hanks)
Sat Apr 11 02:45:53 1992
From: Stan Hanks <stan@casc.math.uh.edu>
To: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 1:43:43 CDT
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9204101831.AA22894@kronecker>; from "drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU" at Apr 10, 92 2:31 pm
> From: HORN%athena@leia.polaroid.com
> Why does everyone assume that packets (bytes, whatever) should be counted?
> Well, for the "last mile" (the wire between your organization and the
> first external router), costs are based on the capacity you have, not
> the usage.
Unless you're on some sort of packetized delivery mechanism, like SMDS/Frame
Relay/etc over ATM or SONET, or the MetroFiber MDS services. In those cases,
all you have to do is hope they might be priced on a per-packet or per-unit-time
basis...
Note that if you have to pay for the last mile delivery on a "dedicated"
basis, that you *will* have to suck up the minimum operating costs yourself.
However if you're in a multi-tenant building where there are several people
who may need access at less than some high speed (DS-3, for instance) then you
should be able to get away with some form of cost sharing on the delivery
resources. Ditto if you happen to be on fiber, and have a true drop-and-insert
architecture. Otherwise, you're screwed.
Regards,
Stan
