[587] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: At What Price Will TCP/IP Connections Gain Wide Market Appeal?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Will@cup.portal.com)
Sun Apr 14 22:40:13 1991
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: Will@cup.portal.com
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 91 19:45:51 PDT
Edward Vielmetti says:
<So to conclude: if the regulatory hassles can be overcome, you should be
<able to get roughly the same amount of UUCP or anonymous FTP airtime for
<the same amount of money. More permanent connections will cost more.
<$200/month, plus some startup costs, is perhaps a little low, though as I
<say it's hard to judge without competition.
What I was getting at was that I don't think $200/month is at all low
unless you happen to be in one of the two markets that I roughly
sketched out. Why would any consumer in his right mind pay $200/month
for services that are similar to what he could get on CompuServe for
far, far less money? I realize that with TCP you get peer-to-peer
connectivity, but users don't think technology; they think
applications. And with CompuServe I get mail, conferencing, libraries
of programs, multi-user games, and a lot of other things that sure
have the look and feel of the counterpart services available through
TCP. So barring the existence of some "killer application" that makes
a case for TCP, it seems to me that the *consumer* market for TCP
connections is going to be severely restricted until the currently
high price comes down considerably.
That said, I think that the *business* market looks very promising.
The application that should drive that market is electronic mail, and
the reasons to use TCP are low cost per user and extensive existing
mail connectivity. What might hold up that market is the perception
that it is not secure and that commercial use is forbidden. The first
issue is being addressed by privacy enhanced mail, and the second issue
is (maybe) being addressed by the CIX agreement. Perception is
everything unfortunately, and I understand the bureaucratic mind well
enough to know that if there is even the possibility that a CIX-connected
company could misuse the Internet, many larger companies will stay
away from even CIX. Many companies give their research people access
to the Internet; the key question from a commercialization point of
view is how do you convince those same companies to use a commercial
TCP/IP network as the backbone for all of the company's commercial
electronic mail?
Thanks,
Will Estes Internet: Will@cup.portal.com
UUCP: apple!cup.portal.com!Will
