🚀 go-pugleaf

Revenant wrote:

  THE AUSTRALIAN INTERNET IS UNDER ATTACK.  PLEASE SIGN THE ONLINE
  PETITION AT: http://www.ozlink.net/

  Anyone can sign, not just Australians.  Please help!
  -----
  On March 25, 1997, the Australian Parliament passed legislation that

  threatens to shut down the Internet in Australia. The
  Telecommunications Bill opens the way for Telstra to charge for
  timed data calls. As the source of connectivity for hundreds of
  ISPs in Australia, this will allow Telstra to strangle Australia's
  ISP industry by raising their charges. In turn, these charges will
  be passed on to the consumer. Using the Internet through today's
  ISPs will become so expensive that very few people will be able to
  afford it.
  Companies will lose their clients and go out of business. Gradually,

  Telstra will take over Australia's ISP community, and the age of
  affordable Internet access will end.

  As Ramin Marzbani, Principal of www.consult, Australia's leading
  Internet analysts, remarked, "Telstra are very smart and
  well-prepared. The ISPs don't have a chance".
  -----

  FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE http://www.ozlink.net/

  -------------- Revenant [kgb@rosella.apana.org.au]
  -------------------
  "The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men
  live
  on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak."
  - author Robert A. Heinlein on censorship.

 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. How many
ISP's provide untimed internet access, some US�ISP's tried this approach
of "all you can eat", which caused massive growth in users, drove up all
the infrastructure costs at a faster rate than revenues and nearly
brought down AOL whole system. Most US�ISP's are now restructuring
pricing rates back to a user pays system, more you use, more you pay.
Why is it that Telco's should be any different, the role of Price is as
a rationing mechanism, ISP's use it, but want someone else (telco's) not
to.

This beat up on Telstra as putting all ISP's out of business is crap,
ISP's are likely to fold in big numbers any way as there is no money in
being an ISP. You have to be big to survive, none of the ISP's are
making reasonable returns on capital because expenses are growing faster
than revenues. Unless a more rational economic structure is put inplace
for the internet, it is headed for collapse. This means allowing for
timed calls, charging for greater quality of service (RSVP), and
stopping cross subsidisation between industry players.

In response to Ramin, Telstra are not smart, it is the ISP's which are
smart.