On Fri, Jan 23, 1998 at 03:19:37AM -0000, John R. Levine wrote:
But the important thing they did not say (and which may be of some interest to NANOG) was what is supposed to happen to the packets once they whiz down the DSL wire from the consumer to the phone company central office, since DSL data, unlike ISDN or regular dialup connections, doesn't go through the phone switch. Whoever handles that IP traffic needs a router or something similar next to the phone switch to connect to those DSL pairs. Do the Bells plan to hand all the traffic to their oh-so-independent ISP subsidiaries? Will it be gold rush time as every ISP in the country scrambles to get colo space for a router in every central office in the territory they want to serve? Do the Bells plan to sell MAN connections between telco-run routers at the phone office and the ISPs? Who knows?
The only plan I can see that would be equitable would be for tge regulated utility to operate the "DSL-Max's" (or whatever), and rent access to all comers at a tarriffed price. This _is_ after all a side effect of the fact that they have an effective monopoly on the copper... and it _is_ the regulated company that owns the copper. As long as they're charging their subsidiary the same price as me, I don't care. But I _wouldn't_ let them provide _anything_ except routing. No news, no mail, no Radius... nada. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued The Suncoast Freenet "Two words: Darth Doogie." -- Jason Colby, Tampa Bay, Florida on alt.fan.heinlein +1 813 790 7592