Bell vs. Internet Providers (fwd)

Mon Nov 13 15:55:13 UTC 1995

>> no, they have simply identified someone whom they think has no
>> alternative to just bleeding more.  Ah, the perks of the monarchy.
>
>the story i heard was not about usage percentage by time, but rather
>usage percentage by bandwidth.  modems squeeze every possible transition
>out of the 3KHz band, while voice calls have few tones and much silence.
>this means a modem call takes more bandwidth out of the inter-CO trunks
>and LD aggregates.  the telco's don't use strict DS0a TDM internally.
>
>the only reason why usage percentage by time matters to a telco is to
>differentiate between the economic impact of G3 FAX vs. V.32bis modems:
>they both use all of the link's transitions but FAXes are usually short
>lived and so there's nothing to worry about.
>
>i'm not happy about the trend toward detecting modem users and charging
>more for them, but it's an inevitable technical/economic necessity and
>that means the PUCs around the united states are all going to have to
>let it happen.  what's amazed me for the last few years is that it's
>taken the telcos so long to realize what they need to do and do it.

I observe a lot of users expecting to use ISDN connections as if they were a
dedicated line.  "ISDN is cheaper than Frame Relay".  I have noted that some
ISDN tariffs call out higher prices for "data" use of a B channel than analog
use.  It seems that the phone companies are trying to take advantage of new
environments to increase income.

On the other hand, it costs a bit more to install ISDN than more analog
circuits.  I also suspect that long holding times take up ISDN switch
capacity.  I wonder if telephone engineering is keeping up with the usage
changes.

Dave Nordlund                               Dir of Technical Svcs
Databank, Inc                                      913/842-6699
1473 Hwy 40                               nordlund at databank.com
Lawrence, KS  66044                  "Your Key to the Internet