Re: satisfied customer

["John E. Babbitt Jr." <john@cutler.com>]

  >>My company pays $70/mo for flat rate 64KB frame relay.  No per-minute
  >>charges or any other hidden costs.
  
  oops, make that $80/mo flat rate 64KB.  I just checked my contract.
  
  > is that complete charges or does that include routing, etc?
  
  That does not include ISP, if that's what you mean.  ISP charges us $300/mo 
  for 64KB.  It's like you'd pay $x for ISDN, but doesn't include ISP either.
  
  > ps... do you get full throughput or is your carrier totally loaded?
  
  Frame Relay goes from my site in Medford, OR to Ashland, OR, a "local call" 
  of only 25 miles.  Hardly ever congested.  From the ISP in Ashland, they use 
  MCI as their carrier and the link goes into Sacramento, CA.  It's clear 
  there, too.  From Sac to San Francisco, it's very crowded, sometimes giving 
  me 50%-80% packet losses.  MCI is upgrading their lines there come April to 
  accomodate the unexpected explosion that occur/is occuring in Feb/Mar. 
   Before that, it was just fine.  MCI is also trying to redirect traffics 
  that do not need to pass through San Franscisco.  That has improved our 
  packet losses down to 10-20% with the losses blamed on other carriers, e.g., 
  Alternet.  I think overall, the Internet traffic has exploded, overflowing 
  not only MCI but other carriers as well.
  
  Why did I chose Frame Relay?  It's the only thing affordable at a decent 
  speed.  We have ISDN here in Oregon but probably considered to be the 
  highest cost in the State, from what I read on a cost/month per state chart 
  that was flowing around on this list recently.  It's cheap only if we use 
  less than 200 hours a month. :-(
  
  Regards,
  
  John E. Babbitt, Jr.
  john@cutler.com