Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!telecom-request
From: ryan@cs.umb.edu (Daniel Guilderson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws
Message-ID: <telecom11.253.5@eecs.nwu.edu>
Date: 30 Mar 91 04:34:05 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 253, Message 5 of 10

> The ideal solution is to have everyone pay based on the number of
> hours they "consume" and the relative cost to the supplier (home
> shopping network is much cheaper than HBO for the cable company to
> provide). 

I doubt the cable companies would ever submit to this "solution"
because they are operating on fixed costs.  It doesn't matter if you
aren't watching TV during the month of March, they still have to
maintain a working connection to your residence.  By the same token,
it doesn't cost them anything more if you have 100 TV sets hooked up
as opposed to one.  For a broadcast type service such as cable
television, the amount charged to customers should be based on the
cost to make and maintain the physical connection.

It's different for phone companies because some calls take up more
resources than others.  Which makes me wonder about how a computer
network could be billed.  I figure a TCP/IP (or some kind of ISO based
protocol) network would be a highly desirable thing for a lot of
people.  I don't think it's good enough to limit it to SLIP because
then the only time your connected to the network is when you call it
up.  I would want something that's always connected.  I figure the
fairest way to bill this kind of network would be to only charge for
packets that originate from your node.  What do you think?


Daniel Guilderson   ryan@cs.umb.edu