On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 11:43:39PM -0400, Brian Lloyd wrote: > Jay R. Ashworth wrote: > > And moreso, in the WirelessWAN environment I'm specifically talking about, > > it's even *less* so -- most of the others are circuit-switched; idle but > > connected calls consume much heaver weight resources (a physical channel vs. > > a network connection control block in the memory of a couple machines). > > Yes, that is true but the available bandwidth is still finite.
Stipulated. And I never said otherwise. The question, as a carrier, is *where* do you set the flat rate so as to make sure that you've ramped your income up commensurately with the requirements for build out -- which is two almost completely different questions depending on whether you're considering hotspot/wired economics or wireless WAN economics. Or so it seems to me. > > Packet switching is about as cooperative an environment as you're going to > > get for flat-rating -- the incremental overhead is so much lighter. > > The overhead is not the issue, capacity is. There is a glut of backbone? > bandwidth in terms of fiber right now in the US but many people are > still behind relatively slow links (T1/xDSL). If you mean the *houses* are, and you can call T1 slow with a straight face, then I'll agree with you. :-) Much of that judgement depends on what you're doing, of course, but I share a 256K slice with about 5 other people fairly frequently and for surfing, it's not bad at all. RoadRunner's better of course. If you're talking about the concentrator network, of course, T-1 is staggeringly slow these days. > Heck, I am behind a > 1Mbps VSAT down here. The local telco gets $350/mo for 1Mbps ADSL to > businesses. "telco" is the important word. Do you get David Isen's SMART letter? ;-) > We are relatively bandwidth starved (which doesn't make > a darned bit of sense since St. Thomas is the major fiber nexus for > much of the Caribbean and Central America). See above. :-) > I want users to keep their > usage down so that the capacity available will go as far as possible. I used to handle 40 modem on a 256K FR backhaul to a Texas uplink in addition to 30 more on a 64K link to me, in about 1996... everyone was pleased as punch with the throughput... until IPhone arrived. > Usage-based billing will do that. Flat rate encourages overconsumption > because you get more bang for your buck if you overconsume. If you are in *control* of your usage. For *internet access*, I don't mind per hour billing (though *I* wouldn't take it), but I can't deal with *per KB* billing -- which is what you'd have to do in the wireless milieu about which we're prattling here. > Regardless, I recognize the marketing necessity of flat-rate billing. Ah, so I'm *not* nuts. Cool; thanks. :-) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member of the Technical Staff Baylink RFC 2100 The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274 OS X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows -- Simon Slavin, on a.f.c -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
