🚀 go-pugleaf

Tommy the Terrorist (u58563@uic.edu) wrote:
: In article <3171758c.1541757@news.enteract.com> Josh Landess,
: jlandess@starnetinc.com writes:
: >The net, like anything else, has inherent limitations.  There is only
: >a certain amount of data that its can handle in its present form.
:    If "market forces" were set to drive Internet prices up, the long
: distance companies wouldn't be demanding this censorship of their rivals,
: now would they?  The simple fact is that when you pay for a dialup
: account with an Internet Provider, you pay for all the access you can
: cram down a 28.8k modem line.

Exactly.

And who are they paying?

Among others, we find MCI and Sprint.  And they pay for dedicated lines
priced by maximum bandwidth allowable, not by usage.  And how is that
bandwidth ultimately delivered to customers?  By local phoneco,
untarriffed, leased or business or residential lines and then onto the
untarriffed backbone (because it's "experimental").  The tarriff is
unpaid.  But the companies who benefit are among the LD companies.  And
other LD companies could easily get on the backbone bandwagon. 

:  Whether it's those silly pictures on the
: Netscape Home Page, or a telephone conversation, that amount of bandwidth
: is used up for most of the time you're on-line.  Notice that the I-phone
: connection goes via that modem; hence, it uses substantially less
: bandwidth than an ISDN line, which is what effectively is used up by one
: standard telephone conversation. 

Untrue with regard to telephone systems; true with regard to Internet
backbone.  Re: tarriffed lines, it has about the same impact -- as 28.8 is
analog, it uses the same bandwidth on phoneco systems as your voice calls
would -- plus no periods of silence.  On the backbone, 28.8 plus
compression will probably average less than straight 64K ISDN.  But impact
is not the issue with the telcos -- tarriff avoidance is.

: You use 28.8k with I-phone, versus 64k
: for the standard.  What the phone companies want banned, therefore, is
: the Internet Provider's ability to offer people a wider range of options
: as to how much voice quality they are willing to sacrifice in order to
: get a cheaper connection!  This is absolutely contrary to the spirit of
: the "Free Market" propaganda we hear spouted from every politician's
: lips, but of course, wholly in the spirit of what they actually intend.

Regulated markets (even now) != "Free Market".  Politician banter aside.

I personally think this activity by the telcos is really a move to see the
federal interstate tarriffing done away with. 

      -Mike

--
Michael Brian Scher   (MS683)   | Anthropologist, Attorney, Part-Time Guru
http://www.tezcat.com/~strange/ |          strange@cultural.com
strange@tezcat.com              |       mbscher@midway.uchicago.edu
   I'm a legal anthropologist; what's an illegal anthropologist?