On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
Anyone claiming they can deliver T1 speeds for $30-40 a month is lying given the current state of interconnection expense across real distances. Quest and others laying fiber will not lower these costs by 95%, which is PRECISELY what has to happen to hit those targets.
Save your breath, Karl; I've been banging this drum for _months_ now, or more, in a half dozen venues, and no one's getting it.
Let's use the oh-so-lovely information superhighway metaphor for a moment. Imagine a city street with lovely homes on it, large lots, beautiful flower gardens in front, children laughing and playing. Now imagine the specifications for this street and for the driveways coming off it. Those zoning rules and engineering plans say that the street and the driveways must be engineered to handle a full size semi truck. The street needs to be wide enough and straight enough to accomodate such trucks and the driveways have to be wide enough that such a truck can turn into them. But wait, what's that sign at the end of the street!? NO TRUCKS! Horrors, there is a legal case here of mammoth proportions. When a street is designed to handle truck traffic then there must be an implicit promise that trucks can drive there. Who cares if the residents are annoyed by truck traffic. They have no choice in the matter, they are mere homeowners, not designers and builders of *ROADS*!!! There are no simple answers to any of the network problems posed by the widespread deployment of ADSL, but one thing is sure. The solutions will not all come from the domain of network engineering. -- Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com