Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 14:34:19 -0800 From: "Amancio Hasty Jr." <hasty@rah.star-gate.com> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: chuckr@Glue.umd.edu (Chuck Robey), chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Act Now ! Message-ID: <199603102234.OAA00325@rah.star-gate.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 08 Mar 1996 10:05:18 MST." <199603081705.KAA17161@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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To Terry 8) San Jose Mercury News , March 9, 1996: Internet Phone carriers criticized: The ability to use personal computers to place long-distance phone calls over the internet is still in its infancy, with first software hitting store shelves one a year ago. But smaller long-distance telephone companies already are sensing a serious threat to their bottom line. A trade group representing about 130 small long-distance providers asked the Federal Communications Commission this week to stop this kind of communications and study how to regulate it. "There is something fundamentally wrong , from our members perspective, that somebody can can talk over the Internet for free. They are giving away our product", said Charles H. Helein, general counsel of America's Carriers Telecommunications Association in Mclean, Va., which represents carriers with revenues of less than $100 million" But the software is advancing despite ACTA's fears and protests.... (further product announcements on audio over the internet designed to make the issue even worse for the small telcos) Enjoy, Amancio >>> Terry Lambert said: > > I am a little puzzled. I saw your notice on hackers, moving this to chat > > (quite correctly) saying that Chuck is wrong, and message unit based > > charging must die. I think I have that correctly, anyway. I'm confused, > > because I was never arguing that message based charging was anything at > > all, I was arguing that the internet can't absorb even a tiny, tiny > > fraction of the voice traffic (that nows runs on dedicated voice > > networks). I don't see where the topic changed, but if it has, to that > > topic, I'm not holding any position there at all, and I don't want to > > argue it. Maybe I should let this drop here. > > Well, I can tell you that I think circuit switching is in fact more > expensive than packet switching. > > The message unit charges argument is just a supporting argument as a > hedge against a claim that the cost of moving to packet switching > exceeds the cost of keeping circuit switching (should you bring that > up as a counter). > > My point is that I think the Internet will subsume the phone networks, > even if you are right about its current capacity, since that capacity > will increase over time. > > I'm not very worried about the internet overloading, nor about the > VON paranoia, since I think both ideas ignore the economics of the > situation. The voice and data networks *will* be integrated, and > there *will* be people with the capability of not generating audit > records for connection creation and tear-down, so billing by > connection will go away. > > I think the ability to bill by connect + message units is the *only* > reason things are still circuit switched -- it's not the inability > of packet switched networks (like the Internet) to handle the load, > that incents them, it's the ability of the telephone company to > keep on doing business as usual. > > > > I was started because of that Voice Over Net article that was posted, > > and the (un)reasoning over the telco's response to what I saw as a > > non-issue. Since it couldn't possibly happen, why would they make a fuss > > over stopping the impossible (today's impossible being, of course, > > tomorrow's obvious path). It's impossible today, why worry it? When it > > becomes possible, it's going to happen anyways, because of all the > > unregulation. > > I see it as a non-issue because I think it's inevitable. > > So at least we agree, it's a non-issue. 8-) 8-). > > > Terry Lambert > terry@lambert.org > --- > Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present > or previous employers.
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