[2811] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
ISDN questions anyone?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU)
Fri Jun 5 23:20:32 1992
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 92 23:19:37 EDT
From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: com-priv@psi.com, eff-talk@eff.org
In-Reply-To: <9206052135.AA11902@taylor> "drw@math.mit.edu"
From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
I find it outrageous that an analog line connection over dial-up to
a site locally here would cost me $2160 (!) to maintain a month
before discounts (which would be something like 30%) while a leased
line at 56kbs (4 times my best line rate on analog service) to that
same point DOES cost me $250.00 a month.
Perhaps this is because making a phone connection is expensive
relative to maintaining one that has been made. Someone once
calculated that the phone system would be cheaper overall if phone
rates were set so tone dialing wasn't an extra-cost option -- the
"digit listener" that gets the phone number from the caller is
expensive enough that the fact that tone dialing keeps it tied up less
time than pulse dialing does is significant!
Now, if you use a dial-up line for 8 hours each business day, you're
using maybe 9600 minutes a month. Most people who are doing that are
making lots of short calls, because they're using the phone to contact
many people, maybe 2000 or 5000 calls a month. There's a lot of
digit-listener time in there. If you're making only one 8 hour call
per day, you cost the phone system a lot less work, but the phone rate
structure is usually per-minute-of-call, rather than a large fee for
the first minute and a lower fee for additional minutes, so there's no
way for the rate system to charge you less than the guy making 5000
2-minute calls per month.
Dale Worley Dept. of Math., MIT drw@math.mit.edu
--
They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-----
-- General John Sedgewick, Union Army, last words, 1864
