[9137] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
The Buffalo Free-Net / NYSERNet / PSI problems
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Sat Dec 18 18:24:51 1993
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 18:24:18 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: fidelman@civicnet.org
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Miles R Fidelman's message of Sat, 18 Dec 1993 17:36:14 -0500 (EST) <Pine.3.87.9312181714.A14111-0100000@world.std.com>
>From: Miles R Fidelman <fidelman@civicnet.org>
>Its worth noting that the Internet exists precisely because the telcos,
>by law, MUST allow resale of leased facilities. If regional networks,
>for example, had to pay the telcos for each user of a leased line (and
>maybe every packet to boot), then the Internet as we know it would not
>exist. This also extends to, say, the World: Barry, how would you like
>to pay for your Alternet access lines by the user or by the packet? :)
It would certainly change our rate structure for access to the
internet and, presumably, everyone else's (i.e. every other public
access provider.)
Not sure what your point is, other than there might be less customers
at a higher rate. But that alone is not a predictor of success or
failure. Actually, for all I know per-packet charging as you describe
might cost less for what we do. There are several assumptions in your
statement that need examination. T1's etc aren't exactly free now, and
I assume their prices are at least partially based on the reserved
rather than actual bandwidth used. Although we have a few T1's and a
few dozen 56k's here etc we hardly see them even close to 100%
utilization, so who knows?
>The telcos have noticed this lost revenue of late -- witness their
>attempts to get into the business of charging per packet on ISDN packet
>services,
To be perfectly frank, I have not really noticed any such attempt, at
least not with ISDN.
It looks to me more like they're very occasionally being dragged
kicking and screaming and making it as unattractive as possible as if
they don't want such customers. And that seems to gibe with the total
lack of enthusiasm I've seen from my vendors when the issue has come
up (i.e. Nynex, NE TelCo.)
Anyhow, I'd be hard pressed to guess *what* the TelCos are thinking
about all this. There certainly are also advantages to picking up
those T1 leased line fees predictably every month without any detail
billing etc. I'd have to know more about their own costing and
overhead models to comment.
-Barry Shein
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