Did you *really* get the gist of my post ? I own a communications company that oversells capacity. I have bought transit for most every employer I have worked for in the past as well, and I have worked for more than one flavour of LEC/ISP. Not a good discussion if you live an a different planet though :-) (Yes Stephen, I have Cisco in it also.) /Dee "Sameer R. Manek" <manek@ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:

What planet have you been employed on? Almost every communications company oversells capacity, to do otherwise would suggest they are selling the service at a loss.

When you buy unlimited dialup, they don't put aside a modem with your name-tag on it. They let you compete again all the other uses who use that POP. The ISP knows that only X% of their users will be dialing in at any given time, so they only have to have capacity for N+1 users.

When you buy transit from a provider, they almost always have a committed information rate clause, which is usually significantly less then the capacity of the line you are buying from them. There is a reason why dedicated dialup costs more then service that is sold as "unlimited". Your business model has to account that a some users will use more then you expected them to, but most will use the expected amount, even though you sold them more then they needed.

Even the phone company does this that's why there is a "fast busy" or the recording of the nice lady who informs you "all circuits are currently busy".

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-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of W.D.McKinney Hmmm, smells like a little of vendor knows more than the customer again. I love it when hardware vendors tell service providers how to make money/run the business.

/Dee

"Stephen Sprunk" <ssprunk@cisco.com> wrote:

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Thus spake "Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol@JustThe.net>

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On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Greg Pendergrass wrote:

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It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use 100% of what they pay for.

So you think that dialup users should be allowed to stay

online 24/7 for

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$20/month on an account advertised as unlimited?

If the ISP sells "unlimited" access, then customers have every right to use it without limit.

If the ISP places restrictions on what access is allowed and/or how long, then it is no longer an unlimited service, and it would be fraud to market it as such.

ISPs count on customers not using all of what is sold to them; if they turn out to be wrong, that is a part of the risk they took.

S