On Thu, 6 Oct 2005, Hannigan, Martin wrote:
The dialup case results in a very large number of users of a large number of ISPs being single-homed to one or the other of these outfits. Keep that in mind too when you next sign a contract for wholesale dialup service.
Dialup costs are $5 a month or less wholesale. What do you expect?
That reminds me. If you remember the whole thing started with that L3 complains that Cogent is trying to steal its customers. I kind of checked and it appears Cogent is after dialup/dsl/cable ISPs who as you can guess have absolutely opposite traffic ratio to typical hosting provider that uses cogent. Obviously this extra traffic does not cost Cogent anything (even if its not peering but transit) and allows it to level its in/out ratio. Now going back to it L3 considers that by offering them connectivity at almost no cost Cogent is dumping - but L3 did the same to get those customers under their contracts some years ago (also in order to even its ratio) and besides that I've heard several times from smaller ISPs (see discussion on isp-bandwidth year or two ago) that they are willing to provide transit for dialup & dsl ISPs at no charge (and I think I know couple cases where that is true) so they would have better ratio for peering. Now Cogent is also offering free transit for single-homed L3 customers to spite L3 after depeering - majority of such single-homed transit customers are in fact these dsl/dialup ISPs Cogent is after which is why they were willing to make this offer ... Now with 0 transit cost and 0 equipment cost (mostly old dialup equipment loans for which have by now been paid for) its no wonder dialup providers are able to offer it at $5/mo if somebody else takes care of the customer support & billing ... -- William Leibzon Elan Networks william@elan.net