MFS WorldCom/WilTel/LDDS

Thu Aug 29 04:11:39 UTC 1996

> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 20:12:51 -0700
> From: Vadim Antonov <avg at quake.net>
> To: ed at texas.net, jerry at fc.net
> Subject: Re: MFS WorldCom/WilTel/LDDS
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> 	[...]
> To be more precise it would have had merit if Internet
> metering was at least remotely technically feasible.
> 	[...]

The easiest point to measure traffic is undoubtedly on the link between
the customer and its ISP.  I believe that many ISPs are already
measuring the total amount of traffic into and out of each customer.
I even saw a complicated pricing formula from one ISP which added a
surcharge cor customers which passed a lot of traffic over the last time
period (some number of months, I seem to recall). So, at least at one point,
we already have at least one example of an ISP which had a component
of its pricing based on the amount of traffic transferred over a 
dedicated connection.

A number of other usage-based charging schemes have been proposed which
were based on tractable measurements, (e.g., settlements of all sorts
of flavors, combits, ...).

Measuring traffic accurately enough to use the results in charging is
not hard.  On the other hand, it is possible to invent measuring schemes
which are impossible to implement, (e.g., a host-to-host traffic
matrix gathered somewhere nearer the "core" [whatever that is] of
the Net.

On the other hand, I probably missed your point...

-tjs