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Xref: sserve comp.dcom.frame-relay:726 comp.dcom.isdn:10932 comp.unix.misc:16185 comp.os.linux.misc:35751 comp.os.386bsd.misc:5501 comp.os.misc:3835 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!uwm.edu!news.alpha.net!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!rosevax!fieldday!not-for-mail From: sewilco@fieldday.mn.org (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.frame-relay,comp.dcom.isdn,comp.unix.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.misc Subject: Re: flat rates for Internet/phone (Re: X on dial-in) Date: 24 Feb 1995 10:44:55 -0600 Organization: FieldDay Lines: 41 Message-ID: <3il2e7$36c@fieldday.fieldday.mn.org> References: <D3s19v.4M7@pe1chl.ampr.org> <root.793371940@c00037-5pa.eos.ncsu.edu> <D4DH09.BAo@pe1chl.ampr.org> <phrD4G1np.MoG@netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: fieldday.fieldday.mn.org Summary: Modems and ISDN are circuit switched and use more bandwidth than FR. In article <phrD4G1np.MoG@netcom.com>, Paul Rubin <phr@netcom.com> wrote: >In article <D4DH09.BAo@pe1chl.ampr.org>, >Rob Janssen <pe1chl@wab-tis.rabobank.nl> wrote: >>No, your current phone bill is based on the fact that you use it only >>3% of the month. When you would use it all the time, your bill would >>go up. > >Most parts of the US have flat rate monthly local service. >Lots of people use their phones all the time (such as for >24 hour a day SLIP connections) and their bills don't go up. >It really doesn't cost TPC any more to keep the connection up. For modems and ISDN, the phone company has to devote the bandwidth of one voice circuit (2 for 128Kbps ISDN) to the call for as long as the call lasts. That's 1/24th of a T1 trunk between switches; the fraction is smaller if faster trunks happen to be in use. Only with Frame Relay does the phone company examine the incoming data. If nothing is being sent, no bandwidth between switches is used. Thus the trunks between switches can be used for many more Frame Relay active connections than active voice connections. That's also why you pay more to reserve more FR bandwidth; because you're paying for the fraction of the phone company resources needed for the larger data stream. >I think there's a different kind of naivite going on in this thread >which is that people have forgotten the cliche that the world's largest >computer is the phone network. Well, the cost of computing (CPU >cycles, disk space, LAN's) has dropped by a factor of at least 1000 >in the past couple decades, but the cost of phone calls hasn't >changed much at all. So there is either some gross inefficiency >or some huge profits (or a combination) happening at the telco's. >The Internet is beginning to make the disparity more visible, >as more and more ordinary people's traffic is moved on high volume >channels whose costs have a (slightly) closer relationship with >the actual cost of creating bandwidth from point A to point B. -- Scot E. Wilcoxon sewilco@fieldday.mn.org 1. Laws are society's common sense, written down for the stupid. 2. The stupid refuse to read. Thank you for choosing to read.