🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4fuou8$cvc@news.aros.net>, angio@fluffy.aros.net says...

>   We'd love to support it.  As a matter of the initial equipment outlay, 
>all of our terminal servers are ISDN-ready.  Now.  Not tomorrow.  Today.  
>I need to buy the interface board for them, and that's it.  You might ask 
>why I haven't already done so?  Because at our ratio of 10 users per 
>modem, if I have to *pay* US West $180 per month per ISDN line.. well, 
>you can figure it out.  That's $18 off the top for providing ISDN 
>service.

Well, it's not really *that* bad, even in USWorstland.  The proposed USW
tariff for BRI is only, I think, $39/month to *receive* calls.  SO if you're
a typical ISP, you don't make any calls on the line anyway, and $39 isn't
so bad for two B channels. 

The $180 rate is for unlimited use, but very few "normal" people use more
than 200 hours/month.  For that, the $69/month rate is only, say, twice what
it should be, but not surprising given how much money USWest must spend 
giving POTS lines to ranchers in Buffalo Commons for around 1/10 cost.  I
mean, even we Massachusetts subscribers effectively pay our EUCLs to US West.

Anybody who "nails" an ISDN line 7x24 is obviously SOL, but USWest's Frame 
Relay is only around $70/month.  You know which service they *want* you to
buy :-( .   The $184 service should have been labeled "ISDN Semi-permanent
connection".  I think Telstra and maybe Deutche Telekom do that.  It's a
dialable leased-line tariff through the ISDN switch.  (That's a funny way
of saying "We expect this line to be used all the time and set a flat rate
appropriate for that.")

Now as an ISP, it's PRI rates I'm more concerned with, and that's one
area where compaints about US West are certainly warrnated!
-- 
Fred R. Goldstein   k1io   fgoldstein@bbn.com   +1 617 873 3850
Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission.