Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 26 Apr 91 18:22:44 GMT From: Jeff Hayward Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Decreasing Costs of Transmission Message-ID: Organization: The University of Texas Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu 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 307, Message 10 of 12 Lines: 35 In article james@cs.ualberta.ca (James Borynec) writes: > After looking at some of the developing transmission technologies > (notably fiber optics) I have reached some conclusions that I would > like to share with the net. I would also appreciate any feedback. > Clearly the pricing structures do not reflect these costs (Yet!). My > question is - What is AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc going to do when they can > no longer reasonably charge more than a local call? Won't this change > the industry substantially? Will North America move to a wide area > extended flat rate billing zone? > How about this - you pay Sprint $10/month to call anywhere in the USA > to talk for as long as you want. I've been told that AT&T could still make money at a rate of 1/10 of a cent per minute, no matter where in the North America you go. Here in Texas, long distance charges are completely dominated by the local BOC access fees, 7.5 cents/minute per end. It seems clear to me that our society can best exploit the opportunities that today's telecommunication technology brings by doing distance- insensitive pricing. I'm not so sure about time-sensitivity, but I think that the experience of the IP internet shows that usage insensitivity yields some useful results also. It is certainly the case that the BOCs (and to a lesser extent the IXCs) make an enormous profit on a very inexpensive service. Jeff Hayward The University of Texas System +1 512 471 2444 Office of Telecommunication Services jeff@nic.the.net