Re: [Nolug] Cox: grrrr.... BIG GRRR...

I understand your point about why flat rates might be a problem. However,
we have been charged flat rates for phone service for years, and the
telephone companies aren't having problems. Now, the actual flat rate
charged may be low, but I don't see any advantage in moving away from a
flat rate. I think it would hurt the industry as a whole more than it would
help.

Regards, Dustin

At 09:57 AM 1/30/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>I am probably a little biased because:
>
>1) Having been in the access business for 5 years, I know how much it
>costs to deliver good quality Internet access.
>2) I've watched most access companies if not melt down, take a beating
>due to the price wars for customers.
>
>I'm also no apologist for monopoly companies of any sort. But I think the
>current trend in flat rate access isn't really practical. Why should the
>ISP be cahrging the same price to a "geek" who's running a server in her
>house as they are charging grandpa who sends the occasional e-mail? I
>know it's unpopular to say in our circle, but it's true. It just doesn't
>make sense. Line "squatters" realy hit the small ISPs hardest back in the
>old school modem days. An industry standard used to be 10 users per
>modem/phone line. "Squatters" caused most of the busy signals that people
>were so concerned with (except of course, AOL's obtuse marketing . Big
>boy ISP would just fire the guy who felt it was his right to camp on the
>line all day (or use a personal account for business purposes). Maybe the
>guy wuld call and complain, make a (insert ISP name here)sucks.com page,
>whatever. Doesn't matter to the big company. However, the small ISP who
>did that risked tremndous loss when the guy does the same thing to the
>locally owned and operated company, which gets smeared as "greedy."
>
>So all that to say, those of us with flat rate, "always on" accounts are
>getting a sweet deal. Especially those of us who bang the bejeesus out of
>"consumer" accounts. Remember how much a dialup account cost, say 3-4
>years ago? Let's enjoy it while it lasts, or even think about how we
>could form our own access buying group.
>
>Thanks for reading.
>
>Edward Melendez
>http://www.melendez.org
>
>
>
>At 10:25 AM 1/30/2002 -0500, Mikey wrote:
>
><crystal_ball time="near future">
>>I see a bunch of geeks going DSL if $DSL_COMPANY keeps rates < US$100 a
>>month for service with a static IP.
>></crystal_ball>
>>
>>--
>>Since-beer-leekz, |Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.
>>Mikey |Give a man a fully charged electric eel and
>>http://dev/null |he'll never bother you for anything ever again.
>>
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>
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---
Dustin Puryear <dpuryear@usa.net>
Information Systems Contractor (http://members.telocity.com/~dpuryear)
PGP Key for dpuryear@usa.net (http://www.us.pgp.net)
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