🚀 go-pugleaf

Gary Curtis <opus.logic@mailbox.uq.edu.au> writes:

>Doug Willis wrote:
>> 
>> If the internet must rely on distorted economics of cross subsidies
>> from everyday phone users, then it is destined to collapse. The
>> principle of user pays will ultimately ensure the internets survival.
>> Untimed Local Calls are currently providing a subsidy to ISP's. 

>So what you are saying is that the "everyday" users with their untimed
>local phone calls are subsidising the untimed data calls these same
>"everyday" users are making to ISPs.
[...]
>Make no mistake, timed data calls are the thin edge of the wedge.

You're probably right there.  :-)

Read Simon Sharwood's column in _PC Week_ 19 Feb 97, p.32.

The subsidy to ISPs through untimed local calls is only the tip
of the iceberg (to coin a phrase :).

There is also the matter of "pirating" other people's resources
[probably] unintentionally because of the way the Internet works
and routes packets down "available" pipes.  So if one mob's data
(OzEmail Phone, for example) finds its own pipe full it simply
chugs off to find another one, e.g. Telstra's.  In effect, this
means OzEmail gets paid for the use of another's resources.  Of
course, one assumes this could work the other way at times too.
(I wonder if anyone has data on the nett "cross-subsidy" of such
things for traffic to and from Oz?)

It's probably not a situation telcos and others will tolerate
for ever.  Sharwood concludes that private, secure, managed
networks will replace the Net as we know it -- e.g. Clinton's
Internet2, devoted to educational institutions in the US could
be considered an early example of the way ahead.  The motivation
may well be quality of service as much as anything else -- and
that could certainly do with some improvement!

Cheers,  Ian S.

-- 

Ian Staples                        MS-Mail: staplesi@dpi.qld.gov.au
c/- P.O. Box 1054 MAREEBA          Phone  : +61 (0)70 928 555 Home 924 847
Queensland Australia 4880            Fax  : +61 (0)70 923 593   "   "   "