Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 18:42:09 -0500 From: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Act Now ! Message-ID: <199603082342.SAA06876@etinc.com>
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>> [huge 'Voice On Net' article deleted] >> >> The point being, if use of the internet stopped being an experiemental >> tool and became one tenth as popular as, say, the web browsers, the >> internet would stop being useful as a communications medium. The >> bandwidth ain't there, and if it was, the swithcing point bandwidth isn't >> there either. The internet isn't a viable option for massive replacement >> of our telephone network. It's fine for experimenters, and I've been one >> of them, but if it stopped being experimental, and everybody joined in, >> this would be a disaster. > >On the other hand, the main problem with the ability of the telephone >network to handle bandwidth is the fact that it uses circuit switching >so that it can generate accounting records and bill by time rather >than by pipeline size (this is also why the phone comapnies are >puching ISDN so hard, even though Frame Relay scales better to 128k >or higher data rates). [some chest-beating deleted] Actually, the phone companies want no part of "flat rate ISDN", as in order to price it low enough to beat out competitors they'd have to substantially cannibalize their own lucrative private line business. Why would they want to sell flat rate 64k ISDN service for less than they are charging for 56k private lines? why should they charge less than twice as much for 128k? You forget that phone companies are in the business of making money (a concept not known on this list), and they make most of their money on metering services. Since ISDN is not statistically multiplexed (like frame relay), the backbone bandwidth must be sufficient to handle 100% utilization of established sessions, and there is no money to be made on low-priced flat rate service, particularly when the 24X7s are perfectly willing to pay for private line services. With metered service they have another product to offer residential "surfers". With flat rate service they just have another private line product that competes with their other services. I think that when the dust settles, and the legal situation that makes nonsense out of current service offerings, you'll find that flat rate ISDN pricing will fall right in line with private line pricing for 56, frac T1 and T1. Dennis
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