Re: FW: Cable Modems and Choosing an ISP

[Dory Ethan Leifer <leifer@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>]

  > I have been talking with Bell Atlantic for lo these many months 
  > regarding ISDN, originally for my personal, residential use.  Of course, 
  > trying to get ISDN info from BA is a great challenge, especially since 
  > the Residential Tariff is very recent.  No onw at BA is able to define 
  > the true usage costs: is the .02/min a *surcharge*?, is it only in 
  > *local calling area*?, only *intra-LATA*?, how about inter-LATA?, how 
  > about IEC-carried connections???  Ad nauseum.
  
  The .02 is the local surcharge. Many RBOCs charge toll circuit data calls
  the same as voice. Some IECs charge more for data calls. You need to do
  some shopping around.
  > 
  > But the point of this posting has to do with a comment I heard from one 
  > BA employee that BA is planning to BECOME and ISP.  Of course this seems 
  > to be somewhat antagonistic to BA's current efforts to facilitate ISPs. 
  >  But so what...  At the rate that the RBOCs move on new technology, and 
  > the pricing philosophy that they employ (overvalued--uncompetitive), 
  > perhaps their effort to get a piece of the ISP pie will fall as flat as 
  > their non-existent ISDN marketing effort.
  
  So far most RBOCs have had little success in this area. IMHO, because their
  business plans are focused on becoming long distance carriers and defending
  their local turf. RBOCs are limited by MFJ requirements not to
  carry interlata traffic - even IP. Ameritech sells ISP services through
  a non-regulated subsidiary but is still bound by MFJ requirements. If
  you sign up for the IP service, you need to choose a long-distance internet
  provider (LDIP). This makes for confusing marketing and routing engineering
  challenges. I suspect that this will change very soon as RBOCs do not have
  majority market share in packet data services in most places and can 
  probably swing regulatory relief if they use another carrier to handle
  intralata but sell it as their own service.
  
  > Regarding the 'value' pricing structure on ISDN, perhaps the telcos 
  > should expand that philosophy to value-price *all* calls: calls to 
  >    411 Information:  .001/min
  > Friends and Family:  .05/min
  >         Businesses:  .10/min
  >      Professionals: 1.00/min
  >              911: 500.00/min
  >            Datacom: 2.00/min
             (RBOC-unfriendly mailing groups: 10.00/min surcharge)
  
  Dory