this seems to reverberate with comments made just a few days ago... About how, when services are delivered at a flat rate, the provider's most fiscally responsible SOP is to run their network to as close of a breaking point as possible. When services hit 100% resource usage, there is no economic loss (aside from subscribers cancelling, which I won't deal with here). If, on the other hand, services are delivered at a metered rate, and there is demand that is greater than the resources available, then the difference between that demand and the available resources is potential revenue which is lost. Unmetered usage develops an environment which puts some sort of backpressure on the end user, to discourage or prevent the usage of too much resource. Metered usage develops an environment which *encourages* resource use. You want to make more money, right? If you've ever read Compuserve's subscriber magazine, they highlight many files they *want* you to download. Why? Because they charged a metered rate, and they made money on every download. Think about it. The journalist may be stupid, but the point has some merit. Ed -- On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Jeremy Porter wrote:
"... Without usaged-based charges service providers are called on to upgrade their infrastructure with no clear promise of a return on investment."