From: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger) Subject: Re: ATM Utility To: boone@prep.net (Jon 'Iain' Boone) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 15:41:52 -0600 (CST) Cc: avg@sprint.net, tjs@msc.edu, nanog@merit.edu, nap@hq.si.net [...] [A long time ago, I wrote:]
cost-effective in a number of applications today. In particular, the cost of wide-area DS-3 ATM services can be very attractive when compared to a number of point-to-point DS-3s. [...] But, if you don't need the full 45 Mb/s, you can find a more cost-effective solution in the wide-area Fast-packet services. In the case of the MCI Hyperstream offerings, you don't have to pay for the full amount of a circuit from point A to point B -- you simply pay a monthly subscription fee and then a usage charge per Megabyte of data.
So, you can build a multi-megabit/s backbone that is (say) 10 Mb/s and not end up having to purchase the entirety of the DS3 circuits needed to provision it.
Tell you what -- go run the numbers for any reasonable-sized IP provider, and tell me whether or not they are better off on "metered" service of this type, or with full-time dedicated circuits.
Metered service will *always* be more expensive at reasonable to high loads, because the metering and billing costs money to do!
Right answer, maybe, but wrong question. Most ATM pricing I have seen has a "committed information rate" component, which assures a minimum available bandwidth. This is not the "metered" pricing to which you are responding. -tjs