[9373] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Cost vs benefit of internet services (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Humphrey)
Fri Dec 31 19:17:37 1993
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 19:14:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Humphrey <digex@ss1.digex.net>
Reply-To: Doug Humphrey <digex@ss1.digex.net>
To: com-priv@psi.com
>What would happen to your support costs? When the site has a problem,
>you ask if the router is pinging, and he says "I can't hear if it's
>making a pinging noise, it's in another room." Or worse, "Router?
>oh, you mean the beige box in the closet under the phone books with
>the cute bridge logo."
>
>*These* are the guys who are going to need the real handholding. For
>now, I bet IP providers have it easy.
Why is this being asked in future tense? We get these people
today, these companies, etc. The phone rings, one of our support
people answers, the voice says "Is this the Internet?" We have
stopped trying to explain... As they said in the movie "Ghostbusters"
is someone asks you if you are a god, say *yes*.
In short, the clueless masses are just starting to edge into your
local area; a couple of snowflakes land on your nose, and you wonder
exactly how deep it is going to be, how fast it will show up, and if
you have stocked up on enough toilet paper... (washington DC oriented
joke there).
Yes, they are a support load. Until some really seamless software
comes along to make it all like plugging a phone into the wall, this
us the real world, and it will take support.
Doug
