[In the message entitled "Re: BBN/GTEI" on Aug 21, 23:20, Bruce Hahne writes:]

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On-net facilities have made distance-sensitive pricing in most metro areas a thing of the past. Sub $0.04 per DS0-mile long-haul rates have made long haul circuits very affordable. High speed WDM dark fiber routes will make long haul very, very cheap in the next 2 years.

This is the old "bandwidth is so cheap that it's free" argument. True, bandwidth is now inexpensive enough for a single DS0 that it's becoming counterproductive, from a marketing standpoint, for the telco to attempt to differentiate based on distance for a voice call. But if we're ever to arrive at the day when I can turn on my 100Mbps video-over-IP feed to my home PC over my FTTH connection, and expect to actually get reasonable performance, we're probably going to need both metering and inter-provider settlements.

What I said was "distance-sensitive pricing in most metro areas" is not a market reality. Billing for bandwidth used is a good thing. Billing for packet-flow-ds0-miles-per-aardvark is madness. Figure out what your costs are, and bill your customers appropriately. A customer in Borneo is going to have to pay more that a customer in Borneo, Idaho, who may have to pay more than a customer in Dallas, who may have to pay more than a customer in New York. Large metro areas have economies of scale that make very high speed pipes available. -- Dave Rand dlr@bungi.com http://www.bungi.com