InfoWorld Column on Netcom-Cisco Ampersand Collapse

Per Gregers Bilse bilse at EU.net
Tue Jul 9 17:38:04 UTC 1996


On Jul 9, 11:49, Bob Metcalfe <bob_metcalfe at infoworld.com> wrote:
> By the way, Mr. Huegen, the well-known fact that the Internet offers no
> service guarantees has not, as you've written, escaped me.  This well-known
> fact is one of those we are working to FIX.

"We"?  See below.

>                 Borrowing a threshold used by our Federal Communications
>                 Commission in the reporting of telephone outages, when more =
> than
>                 50,000 people are denied their Internet access for more
> than an hour,
>                 let's call it an Internet collapse and give it a name.

You are moving the goalpost.  Your new term, "Internet collapse", is
rather much out of line with accepted definitions of "collapse".  But
never mind.

You say you want to "fix" the Internet.  You borrow a threshold for
telephone outages, and apply this to the Internet.  You want
"guarantees", as in the telephone industry.  In other words, your
definition of a "fix" is FCC/telco style regulated service
provisioning -- instead of letting the market decide, you want a
committee to think on behalf of people.

You are too late for this.  The idea is past its sell-by date.

But never mind the philosophy.  Have you ever wondered what Internet
access costs per minute, whether local, long distance, or
international?  Your average dial-up Internet user pays 10-40 dollars
per month these days.  He would pay that in a few hours, using
the telephone model.

So go ahead and call for your "fix" to the Internet.  If you succeed,
the customers -- your readers -- won't like what's coming.  But
you're doing it all for them, right?

-- 
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