🚀 go-pugleaf

>What is the determining factor as to whether or not incoming lines are
>analog or multiplexed and require a SLC96?

The telephone company is the sole determining factor - the customer
orders "a phone line" and not "a phone line on copper" or "a phone 
line on SLC96/fiber".  The telephone company then provisions the 
line however they wish, and the customer has absolutely no say in 
this.  The phone company considers a phone line delivered on copper
and a phone line delivered via fiber to be the same thing, even 
though they have different performance characteristics.  This is 
because both of them meet a minimal standard; the modem manufacturers
are counting on telephone facilities to operate at speeds faster than
the bare minimum of the specs for a "voice grade line" but in many 
cases (increasing, not decreasing) they do not.

>If I order one phone line, I'm going to get analog from BA. If I order
>two, I'm also going to get analog. 

It depends on where you are located.  If you are in an office building
that was built recently, odds are good that you are getting a line that
is provisioned by SLC96 equipment in the basement, and a fiber line to 
the Central Office (CO).  

>There's a point I presume where it
>becomes cheaper to get a SLC. Is it required to get a SLC, or is it an
>option offered by BA which includes a reduced price for the incoming
>lines. 

It is the telephone companys decision to provision the circuits 
with whatever technology they want to.  The customer has no say 
in it whatsoever.  This is the part that I think you are missing.

>In other words, couldn't Digex get say 2000 incoming analog lines
>if it paid the "normal" rate for them, rather than the "bulk" price. 

No.  This has nothing to do with "bulk price".  We did not order the
service to be delivered on SLC's; it just happens to be the way that 
BA delivers service when you order that many lines into just about 
any single location, since few have that much copper lying around.

>I would find it very surprising that BA wouldn't offer the more expensive
>service, I've never known a phone company to not want to take your money.

Your understanding of this is incomplete; it is not a question of 
more or less expensive service.  See my remarks above for explaination.

>One of your previous messages does leave me very concerned. You mentioned
>that Digex no longer advertises it's Dialup Service, because of the
>problems involved, but does advertise the "premium" leased line, Frame
>Relay, etc services. Can we infer from this that Digex does not consider
>dialup to be an important market?

Consider that others are bashing over the "fact" that we would 
advertise 28.8k (we don't advertise that, but that is a different 
point).  We are not advertising dialup services because of these 
difficulties; most people would think that this is a good move.

We continue to advertise the leased lines and servers which we 
market because those services are fine, and our customers have a 
very high satisfaction rating with them.  Just because there are 
difficulties with one product doesn't mean that a company then 
stops advertising all of its products. 

Doug