Dave Siegel wrote:
That and the fact that ISP owners seem to have larger ego's to protect, for some reason. You can no longer claim "I have more bandwidth than you do." It's a pity, really.
A year ago we suggested local T-1 connected ISPs pool a T-3. (it would have worked out to same cost for shared 10Mbps to a 45Mbps pipe as we all paid for a DS1). We got back exactly 0 Yes-responses. Dave, you were one of those zero respondents. This isn't a "why can't we all get along" topic. ISPs are being formed by inexperienced entrepeneurs who think competition is much better than cooperation (Prisoner's Dilemma.) Perhaps in a year or two, when all the struggling ailing decay-ridden ISPs are gone, and the healthy ones remain, then cooperation will be more of the de rigeur. Note: Someone told me today about an article in ??? that pointed out in 1993 there were 300 ISPs, in 1995 1500 ISPs, and that number is expected to drop to 300 by end 1997. Ehud p.s. If AT&T and MCI can team up to compete in the LEC market, I don't see why ISPs can't team up to get bandwidth, peerage, routing, etc. It's not ego's[sic], it's immaturity. -- Ehud Gavron (EG76) gavron@Hearts.ACES.COM : Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail will cost $500/message under USC 47 s 5.5.2 : : which can be found online at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/ :