Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 17:31:39 -0500 From: Scott Huddle <huddle@mci.net> Your argument changes from an economic one to a political one. If you want to run for office, there are better forums. If you want to convince people who are building commercial networks, get some facts.

In your reply to Dillon, you accuse him of having inaccurate figures. Now, the fact is, he's probably not been around long enough to have read the report, that has long since entered into the net consciousness. I remember seeing it about 5-6 years ago. I think it was a BellCore study, but I may be misremembering. It concluded that over half the cost of operating the RBOCs was customer billing. As I remember, it in turn was based on the reported figures to the PUCs of the RBOCs, looking at the depreciated cost of the cable plant, the stated cost of yearly plant maintenance, and the proportion of equipment unrelated to billing. As I remember, virtually all the switch maintenance costs (particularly configuration and software) was unit billing related. All the customer service reps and such were assumed billing related, while directory service operations were not. Then, proportion the management cost accordingly, and assumed that everything else is billing related. Now, that may have been an old report. I'm sure MCI would be delighted to reveal its current figures for plant depreciation and maintenance, and the amount that it pays (the RBOCs) for unit timing and printing and mailing the statements, along with all the payment collection costs. When you are ready to send that to this list, I will accept your further criticism here of Dillon's numbers. Thank you. WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32 BSimpson@MorningStar.com Key fingerprint = 2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3 59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2