Re: Note from a satisfied customer

[Richard Kashdan <richard@wideweb.com>]

  >On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Bill Frezza wrote:
  >> Interesting thing I've learned about that second B channel, at least in the
  >> real world of Web surfing. Moving from 28.8 kbps to 64 kbps provides an
  >> astounding improvement in throughput, but adding that second B channel does
  >> just about nothing. Yup.
  >
  I find truth to this statement in surfing web pages themselves because of
  all the overhead of retrieving all the little pictures and pieces of a web
  page.  When I download a large file, however, either through Netscape's
  downloading capability or FTP, most of the time I do get a decent increase
  in speed when I am using 2 B channels.  This depends on the server at the
  other end, of course, but most seem capable of delivering large streams at
  high speeds.
  
  
  >> And why should ISDN users be subsidized by plain old telephone users? What
  >> about poor old grandma, do you want her phone bill to go up just so some
  >> geek can sit in front of his PC for 100 hours every month downloading dirty
  >> GIFs?
  >
  Putting aside all the detailed cost numbers that are so difficult to follow
  and to really audit, here is my reason for believing that ISDN lines aren't
  subsidized:  Pacific Bell pays commissions to agents for selling new ISDN
  lines.  Why would they do that if they were losing money on them?
  
  I also don't believe that Pacific Bell loses money on residential POTS lines
  because of the same argument:  they run ads encouraging people to install
  additional residential lines.  Why would they run these ads if additional
  lines would lose them additional money?  Last Christmas, for example,
  Pacific Bell sent brochures to their residential customers with the headline
  "Four calling birds, but only one phone line?  Get additional lines from
  Pacific Bell and they'll be singing in harmony..."  The brochure offered a
  special $100 discount on an HP Office Jet to anyone who installed a second
  residential line by December 31!  I also heard radio ads around that time
  with the same special promotion.  Why?
  __________________________________________________________________________
  Richard L. Kashdan, Esq.  <richard@wideweb.com>  WB6AWJ  San Francisco, CA
  Voice:(415)864-5678   Fax:(415)621-9554   http://www.wideweb.com/rkashdan/
  I can't use Internet providers that only give you 30 free hours per month.
  I'm on that much every day!  But no, I'm NOT addicted.  Really, I'm not...