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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!kurt
From: kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Modem Users Beware: BELL $$$
Message-ID: <757@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Oct-83 13:42:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.757
Posted: Fri Oct 14 13:42:33 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Oct-83 00:50:01 EDT
References: <350@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Everett, Wash
Lines: 37

Bell wants to charge more for modems because it costs them more to service
calls that use modems.  Here's why.

A typical call between two humans lasts only a few minutes.  Calls between
modems can last for hours.  The phone company has less trunk lines than
telephones because not everybody is making a call at the same time.  More
long 'conversations' between modems means the trunk lines are loaded more
heavily, thus invalidating the assumptions on which the rate structure is
based, and forcing the phone company to add capacity.

Some calls (long distance) are multiplexed over the communication channel.
It is very typical that one person is speaking and the other person is
listening.  It is not necessary for the dead air of the listening person to
be transmitted.  Instead, the listener's half of the channel is allocated to
another call and quickly restored when the listener begins to talk (You can
occaisionally notice a situation in which the first syllable of someone's
conversation is cut off when you call long distance.  This is the phone
company not switching channels fast enough).  Modems, on the other hand,
both 'speak' continuously, forcing both parts of the communication channel
to be kept open, which again increases the cost over what is expected of a
'normal' call.

So it is not surprising why the phone company wants to charge you more if
you use a modem.  This is not to say that it is good public policy to let
them do this.  Maybe if they only charge extra for individual calls that use
a modem...  Certainly they should not be allowed to have a monopoly on data
communication.

Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.


-- 
Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt