This is betting on ATM prices being low for a long time -- long enough for investments to ATM equipment to pay off.

From the point of view of ISPs which get lines at cost this is a no-brainer choice.

--vadim

From salo@msc.edu Mon Mar 25 14:49 PST 1996 Return-Path: <salo@msc.edu> Received: from postman.ncube.com by butler.ncube.com (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA28341; Mon, 25 Mar 1996 14:49:36 +0800 Received: from noc.msc.edu by postman.ncube.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08921; Mon, 25 Mar 96 14:50:57 PST Received: from uh.msc.edu by noc.msc.edu (5.65/MSC/v3.0.1(920324)) id AA12387; Mon, 25 Mar 96 16:50:22 -0600 Received: (salo@localhost) by uh.msc.edu (8.7.1/8.6.6) id QAA04516; Mon, 25 Mar 1996 16:50:29 -0600 (CST) From: salo@msc.edu (Tim Salo) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 16:50:29 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <199603252250.QAA04516@uh.msc.edu> To: avg@postman.ncube.com Subject: Re: MCI [ATM overhead] Cc: nanog@merit.edu Content-Type: text Content-Length: 667 Status: R

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 15:09:51 +0800 From: avg@postman.ncube.com (Vadim Antonov) To: jogden@merit.edu, nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: MCI [ATM overhead] [...] The pricing on ATM transport is merely an artefact of "pilot" status of ATM networks. Carriers lose money on that. When market will be established the prices are bound to rise to that of native IP transport, or, likely, more (as ATM does not handle levels of overcommitment found in IP backbones now). [...]

Hmmm... Does that imply that the NSP that can take advantage of underpriced services, (perhaps including ATM, if you are correct), will have a competitive advantage? -tjs