[9369] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Cost vs benefit of internet services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barney Wolff)
Thu Dec 30 23:59:55 1993
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 23:56:31 -0500
From: Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
>There just has to be something wrong with a support model that says you
>can't have any IP/access until you can have it gilt-edged.
>
>--
>Dick St.Peters
>GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
And yet over on the ietf list, people are arguing, with no attempt at
humor whatsoever, that there will be lightswitches on the Internet soon
enough that it's an issue for IPv4 address exhaustion.
The problem is that the provider doesn't control the customer's side of
the connection. If the provider were selling a box which simply hooked
to an RJ11 and did things, the support issue would largely go away.
Internet-in-a-can is a start along that path, but doesn't in this sense
go nearly far enough, as it will have all the problems of dealing with
varieties of modems and PC configurations and varieties of clients over
the tcp stack. Anyone for Minitel? (Yuck!)
I have no solution. We demand the freedom to use unsupported PD/shareware
TCP stacks and clients, and won't pay the IP provider for support either.
Perhaps the only class of organization which could get away with really
meaning that it would not provide support would be the large, faceless
common carrier, either telco or cable. Most of them have no public
respect to lose anyway.
The real solution is to sell bundled and pre-configured machines, just
as Windows comes on nearly all PC clones these days. I wonder how many
CD-ROMs are sold as add-ons, vs bundled, and how many users ever succeed
in installing the add-ons that they got mail-order. When Gateway sells
its machines with Mosaic pre-installed and ready to run, and their tech
support handles the problems, then IP will be really cheap.
Let's ask the question a different way. The providers are seeing robust
growth with the current approaches. Only when that growth curve starts
to look more like the classic S will they have real motivation to go
after yet more virgin markets. How many more doublings do you think
we've got before the easy pickings are gone?
Last thought: When the access line to the provider costs $200-$2000/mo,
do we really expect the the provider will price the whole service just
10% above that? It's not a real surprise that the provider's piece is
(*very* roughly) comparable to the telco's, as the telco charge limits
the market to those who can pay that price.
Barney Wolff, Pres. Voice: 914-591-6572
Databus Inc. Fax: 914-591-5677
15 Victor Drive Internet: barney@databus.com
Irvington, NY 10533-1919 USA "At the corner of database & datacomm"
