Internet access and telco usage patterns

Tue Jul 2 09:53:41 UTC 1996

> I have heard of something like this (I think) going on in Britain where 
> Demon Internet services has Energis providing their dialin lines via
> something called the Virtual POP in which Demon has no equipment located
> outside their NOC and has the ability to switch capacity from location to
> location as load patterns change. Of course, this is probably not working
> at the IP level but simply dealing with routing of digitized switched
> audio calls.
> 
Not only Demon, but just about every dialup access provider over here
has local call access. This is a result of the way the telco regulatory
framework works, which means that an alternative carrier (say Energis,
who pioneered the scheme) get enough of an ingress charge from BT for
it to be worth their while to carry the calls on their network. The
ISP provides Energis with so many call terminations that it's well
worth Energis (or whoever) providing fixed cost per line (no per call
charge) access. This works over here as local calls aren't free.
More details if you want.

Alex Bligh
Xara Networks