Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 29 Apr 91 23:42:24 EST From: "Barton F. Bruce" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Decreasing Costs of Transmission Message-ID: Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. 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 319, Message 4 of 12 Lines: 46 In article , dpletche@jarthur.claremont. edu (Nuclear Warrior) writes: > I have been harboring an amusing idea for some time. Wouldn't it be > great if one of those rare individuals who wasn't motivated solely by > personal and corporate greed was to create a full-service telephone > company, hopefully providing long distance (and in some areas, where > the LEC was especially lame, local service) at the lowest possible You have the right idea. Think of the HORRIBLE impact on the European contries of their individual greedy PTTs. They make the RBOCs look like saints. Realise how fundamental it is to the growth and prosperity of our planet to have communications so darn cheap that ANYONE can easily afford ANY amount of bandwidth they can use. The not millions but BILLIONS of dollars they are about to use to sink the South East Expressway underground in Boston is totally needless. They are perpetuating the ugly downtown mess that originally was 'necessary' only because it was not possible or economical to communicate effectively with other businesses unless you were physically DOWNTOWN. If one tenth of that money were to be invested PERMANENTLY and used to subsidise statewide communication with it being CHEAPER to call anywhere OTHER THAN downtown Boston, and make the WHOLE state a local call to residences, the crying need for this insane artery project would dissappear. Anyone note that even Pop Sci this month mentioned an AT&T software package for Definity PBXes called "HOME AGENT"? You log in or out of your telemarketing response terminal located AT YOUR HOME. When logged in, customer calls will be dynamically routed to you. No gas mileage, no expensive office space rent to support your individual work, and, if in Boston, a little less need to squander billions sinking the smogging expressway. The video teleconferencing codecs that work at 112/128kb will be two or three thousand dollars in a year or so, further allowing businesses to move to their favorite countryside hilltop. Cheap dial T1 could hasten teleconferencing's growth - less compression needed, cheaper codecs. The telco's charter should be 'how much can be done for how little dollars', rather than, sadly, the reverse.