🚀 go-pugleaf

Alastair B Roberts <abr@tardis.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

: On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Kate Galloway wrote:

: > On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, The Nit Nurse wrote:
: > 
: > > I'd have thought that it was 'calls to an ISP's PoP', in which case Embra
: > > Yooni is your ISP and their dial-up service is the PoP. The modem speed,
: > > type or protocol is irrelevant, you're making a call to an ISP's PoP.
: > > 
: > > 
: > Telewest are unaware what is and what isn't a PoP.  Their records are out
: > of date / inaccurate.  The know it is the Uni, they count it as a free
: > call though.
: > 

: For a *telecommunications* company, who are trying to move into the
: so-called information age by introducing cable networks, internet access,
: cable-modems, etc, etc, etc, it is quite ironic that these people fail to
: understand the technology involved. If anybody should understand these
: things, it should be Telewest!

The problem is not the technology (i,e. whether its ISP with internet
router at the other end or just a humble modem) the problem remains is
that modem connections do remain open for much longer than normal calls
*especially* if the call is free. In fact as it requires no action on
your part to keep a line open there is even probably an incentive not
to drop the line. Telcos in the US are having to spend millions of
dollars at the moment to increase their switching capacity because of
this.

The problem is that TW may have used a term that they thought people
might understand in adverts (i.e. "calls to internet services") and
which covers the bulk of this sort of call - however I suspect that in
the actual contract it may say something along the lines of the free
calls applying to voice calls only and not data.

BTW, the other tactic that some telcos have used in the US, I gather, is
to reduce the bandwidth on normal lines to something around 9600 rate
(which appears to be hardly noticeable on voice calls) and then require
people to upgrade to a data line which won't have free local calls if
they want to get a decent rate with a 28.8 modem etc.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
                              david shepherd
 SGS-THOMSON Microelectronics Ltd, 1000 aztec west, bristol bs12 4sq, u.k.
        tel/fax: +44 1454 611522/617910  email: des@bristol.st.com      
      "whatever you don't want, you don't want negative advertising"