Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!lll-winken!telecom-request From: !carroll@ssc-vax.uucp (Jeff Carroll) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Cable TV vs Telco Connectivity Laws Message-ID: Date: 1 Apr 91 19:56:14 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics Lines: 26 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 263, Message 1 of 16 In article ryan@cs.umb.edu (Daniel Guilderson) writes: > 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? This topic is discussed rather heavily in the comp.protocols.* newsgroups by people far better qualified than I; but I'll offer my 0.16 bits. My feeling is that the additional overhead involved in per-packet accounting would result in unnecessarily high costs to everyone. I'd advocate flat-fee billing to all but those who impose significant burdens on the network, who could be charged by some coarse measurement of bandwidth consumed. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com