Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!chinet!ptownson
From: ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: FYI -- PC-P Price "Increase"
Message-ID: <7353@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 2 Jan 89 16:53:50 GMT
References: <8901012214.AA25093@amon-re.cs.odu.edu>
Reply-To: ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 45

In article <8901012214.AA25093@amon-re.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes:
>Sorry, I don't buy that reasoning.  The contract we all got with our
>PC Pursuit accounts was clear that it was an unlimited service.  The
>advertising I saw used the fact that it was an unlimited service as a
>selling point.  The people who manage TELENET are not idiots:  TELENET
>must have known that people would take advantage of the
>"unlimitedness" of the service... 
>
>I don't think it is fair to blame USENET and other "heavy" users for
>TELENET's change in policy.  We (yes, I admit to being a heavy PC
>Pursuit user) were working within PC Pursuit's rules.  Perhaps they
>should have done a little better research, or had written in a ceiling
>in the original contract?
>
>The point here is not that USENET users are "abusing" PC Pursuit, but
>that TELENET didn't correctly estimate the number of people that would
>take advantage of their offer for unlimited service.  

Well, you are correct that Telenet did not correctly estimate the number of
subscribers they would be getting and/or the amount of usage each would
generate. It never occurred to them that people would make 'unlimited' use
of the service to the extent of 1000+ hours per month. 

What would you have them do now, live with that mistake forever? Yes, 
certainly the D-Dial operators and Usenet people were well within their
contractual rights to open a circuit at 6PM on Friday and keep it up until
7AM on Monday. Are you now saying Telenet has no right to renegotiate the
terms of the contract? Maybe I should have phrased my original message
differently and said it was the D-Dials and Usenet which 'forced Telenet
to change the terms of the contract.'  Is that better, rather than actually
casting blame on certain users?

The people and organizations who want to use PC Pursuit in a more business-
like setting will now have the opportunity to pay business-like rates. I
found out over the weekend the reason the rates get higher as more service
is used is that Telenet figures the larger the amount of usage, the more
likely the originator of the traffic is running a business. While D-Dials
are not profit making businesses in the usual sense, they are services which
charge their users (in many cases) for a product. Telenet felt they should
not have to bear the brunt of that.

-- 
Patrick A. Townson
  ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us < > ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu
  US MAIL: 60690-1570   Online terminal: 312-743-3333