US West Pulls High-Speed Service, Angers ISPs

From owner-freebsd-isp Fri Jun 6 23:51:55 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA03359 for isp-outgoing; Fri, 6 Jun 1997 23:51:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from netdev.comsys.com (COMSYS.COM [192.94.236.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA03354 for ; Fri, 6 Jun 1997 23:51:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mobile1.europa.com ([204.202.49.58]) by netdev.comsys.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id AAA05180 for ; Sat, 7 Jun 1997 00:56:20 GMT Message-ID: <3399050E.B22@comsys.com> Date: Fri, 06 Jun 1997 23:51:58 -0700 From: alex huppenthal Reply-To: alex@comsys.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: [Fwd: US West Pulls Dry Copper Tarrif, Angers ISPs] Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------369778946FA1" Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------369778946FA1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those of us working to bring out inexpensive high bandwidth solutions, this bites. US West is afraid to compete on an even playing field. Call your Senator, write to your PUC and express your dissatisfaction with this action. HDSL is used by the telco's to provision T1 circuits so it doesn't 'interfere' with adjacent wire pairs. -Alex --------------369778946FA1 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from axp.cmpu.net (axp.cmpu.net [204.96.11.17]) by netdev.comsys.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id XAA05072 for ; Fri, 6 Jun 1997 23:24:53 GMT Received: from plongip.computek.net (dal531.cmpu.net [204.181.97.41]) by axp.cmpu.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id AAA32399 for ; Sat, 7 Jun 1997 00:13:07 -0400 Message-ID: <33990B0F.6D2DB3@smithmicro.com> Date: Sat, 07 Jun 1997 00:17:35 -0700 From: Paul Long Organization: Smith Micro Software, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b4 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alex Huppenthal Subject: US West Pulls High-Speed Service, Angers ISPs X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------529C5FD31F99ED2DA96A5690" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------529C5FD31F99ED2DA96A5690 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Alex, Did they take away your "dry copper" line yet? http://www1.zdnet.com/intweek/daily/970606f.html -- Paul Long___________________________http://www.cmpu.net/public/plong Smith Micro Software, Inc.__________http://www.smithmicro.com/ "As a man is, so he sees." - William Blake --------------529C5FD31F99ED2DA96A5690 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii; name="970606f.html" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="970606f.html" Content-Base: "http://www1.zdnet.com/intweek/daily/97 0606f.html" US West Pulls High-Speed Service, Angers ISPs

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Inter@ctive Week

June 6, 1997

US West Pulls High-Speed Service, Angers ISPs

By Paula Bernier
5:00 PM EDT
EXCLUSIVE

US West Communications is discontinuing its sale of "dry copper," over which competing telephone companies and Internet service providers can offer high-speed services at low prices. The move is drawing the ire of the Internet community.

US West, which does business in 14 Great Plains and Pacific Northwest states, pulled tariffs for the copper known as Local Area Data Service, or LADS, in seven or eight of its states, and is working to pull the plug in its remaining service areas.

Dry copper lines are standard twisted pair copper lines that are in place but aren't hooked up to provide telephone service. The lines, which use a low-powered signal, are used for such things as security alarms and are relatively cheap to lease from US West, as low as $20 per month.

In recent months, however, Internet service providers, or ISPs, and competitive local exchange carriers, or CLECs, have bought dry copper lines to resell to business customers equipped with Digital Subscriber Line, or xDSL, modems, devices that allow for fast Internet access.

By cutting off the low-cost resale of dry copper lines, US West effectively cuts off competitive provision of xDSL service at prices below what the telephone company wants to charge. US West's !nterprise Networking Services group, meanwhile, is slated to offer it own xDSL service this summer.

Ray Gaudia, director of AZAP Inc., a Las Vegas-based company specializing in secure store-and-forward data transfers sees the move as an effort by U S West to protect artificially high prices for other services, such as its [dedicated] T1, or 1.5-megabit-per-second, service.

"It is not in the telcos' advantage to allow that wide bandwidth access under the 1996 [Telecommunications Reform Act] because customers who are currently leasing [dedicated] T1 for $2,000 can lease [dry copper] T1 lines for under $100 a month, literally hundreds of millions of profits can switch from the telcos to the business community at large," Gaudia said.

US West said, however, that it is concerned about potential network degradation because these dry copper connections weren't intended to support high-speed services.

XDSL signals can disrupt other services, when wires carrying both sets of service are bundled together within the telephone network.

"The [dry copper connections] were intended to be just a signaling channel, like burglar alarm companies use," said Jeremy Story, spokesman for the U S West !nterprise Networking Services group. "Essentially ISPs have latched on to this to create their own circuits and are providing [lots of] bandwidth across them. What that's doing is messing up the network."

Having high-bandwidth connections running in two directions within a central switching office results in what is known as cross-talk, said Joe Glynn, director of product marketing for megabit services, including xDSL services, at !nterprise.

Cross-talk is caused by electromagnetic fields surrounding xDSL circuits that causes degradation on nearby cable bundles, he said.

Glynn said there are two potential solutions to the degradation issue.

Competing carriers put their xDSL equipment into US West's central offices, or COs, so the high-bandwidth connections move out of the CO to the customers instead of from the competing carrier to the CO and then to the customers. Or, competing carriers could resell US West's xDSL service. The carrier recently began its rollout of xDSL in Salt Lake City and expects to set resale pricing in about a month, he said. LADS pricing varies from state to state, but typically costs $28 to $60 per month, Glynn said.

US West is grandfathering in existing companies that are using the copper connections for high-bandwidth services. But that's a very limited group at this time, Story said.

US West can be reached at www.uswest.com

Email Paula Bernier

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