🚀 go-pugleaf

detalia@juno.com wrote in article <501q63$cia@mel.hargray.com>...
> Well, you know, if certain ISP's had more modems so that one COULD
> connect when you needed to, then people wouldn't have to keep their
> connection active in fear of not being able to get back on.  It's a
> two-way street.

	Wonder how much of that modem bank utilization that is keeping people
off-line is other people paranoid that their precious connection may not
come back if they drop it?  This is a chicken-or-egg problem.  If users
DIDN'T sit on line all day long with ping-bots and other contrivances,
there would be a lot more modems in the bank free for real utilization.
	Fact- For 20 dollars a month, you are not buying full exclusive rights to
the use of hundreds of dollars of modem & network equipment.  You are
participating in a highly competitive marketplace where ignorance of cost
factor and blind competitiveness has driven pricing down and modem ratios
up. Where costs for lines and terminal servers and web storage are divided
equally between a critical number of users per line installed. Most people
pay a lot more for cable TV than they do for unlimited access to the global
network.  What do you get more from?  What is more complex to get to your
door?  In a typical modem bank with a modem ratio of between 8 to 1 to 10
to 1, for that modem you are sitting on, doing nothing with, there are at
least 7 or 8 other people that your ISP has an expectation will try to call
that modem over a daily period.  This works when people do not feel
entitled to stay on the phone all day long.  It breaks down when that ratio
load has to be shifted over the rest of the modem pool, just because
someone is afraid they might not be able to log in.
	Fact-  ISPs will really not make more or less money under an unmetered
charge structure if there is turnover on a modem bank or not.  So you
really arent doing them any harm as long as you still write them a check
every month.  The people you are screwing over are your fellow users. 
Remember them? Some of the OTHER people who use your provider, who are also
probably having a hard time connecting.  As soon as someone plops down on
another modem, it just gets harder for them to dial in.  Of course, why
should anyone care about other users?  Especially when one has paid his
princely sum of 20 bucks and damnit, he is going to have "his" modem
	Another Fact- When a market migrates into decisions based mainly on price,
service is going to almost by definition degrade as costs are driven down. 
Nothing is immune to the axiom "You get what you pay for".  When people
express by their buying decision that price is their only concern (And I am
quite aware that many reading this group do NOT follow this thinking, I am
only addressing what I see as a overall market movement.), they somehow
forget this natural law of the universe.  This is a warning to everyone....
 as you move from cheaper to cheaper ISPs, busy signals will increase,
downtime will extend, technical expertise will plummet, and options and
choices for doing things on the net will evaporate.  There is a lot of
venture capital out there waiting to flood into this market (already is
beginning to, actually), and I think we may soon see a lot of clueless
"Internet Gold-Rush" ventures pissing away investment money by trying to
capture a market share with low rates (by pouring that capital into the
revenue loss).  I give them 3-6 months before the need to be profitable
really makes them hit the skids.
	I'm diverging into a wholly different topic here, but one I feel needed to
be addressed, because from my perspective it is at the root of why poor
service is croping up out there. And why there might be a whole lot more on
the horizon.  Choose your ISP wisely if you want more than a cheap monthly
rate.  You WILL get what you pay for, one way or another.  And do your
fellow users a favor...  hang up the phone when you aren't using it.  Be
part of the solution, not the problem.

						Damon Reed
						-Digital America-
						dreed@damerica.net