Subj : z1b link
To   : Lawrence Garvin
From : Bob Seaborn
Date : Wed Apr 18 2001 09:38 am

 > The choices were basically 56K DDS (~$500/month), Fractional T-1 (if it
 > was available ($500-$1000/month), or full T-1 ($1000-$1500/month
 > depending on where you were. George's might have been on the lower side
 > since he's a bit closer to the center of the eastern seaboard
 > metropolitan areas, but I distinctly remember John S. mentioning that
 > his circuit was $1500/month in New Orleans (wasn't much technology in
 > the Big Easy at that time). None of these costs include the capital
 > required to invest in hardware. Bob can speak for himself, but I imagine
 > the cost of circuits in the middle of nowhere-Saskatchewan are even more
 > expensive than in the middle of nowhere-Louisiana.

      Here, a full unmetered, uncapped T1 costs approx $2700 per month.  And
that does NOT take into consideration the cost of the hardware necessary to 
make use of it.  As far as the ISP business goes, it now costs $54.00 per 
analog dialup line, again not including costs of modems, router, etc.  And 
that's only for 28.8/33.6 connectivity. For a 56k connection, a T1 is required, 
$1200.00  per month for 23 lines, works out to about $53.00 per month, slightly 
less, but you must use all 23 'lines'. Considering our biggest competitor is 
the local phone company itself, who sells retail ISP accounts for about 20% 
less than they sell wholesale, and the fact that there is NO local alternate 
phone service (our city population is only around 210,000, with the whole 
province, the size of Texas, having less than a million population), it's an 
uphill battle here to operate an ISP, much less make a profit.

      And btw, a frame-relay 56k line costs around $1500/month here.
Fractional T1's are only available as an addon to an initial T1.  Telco install 
fees start at $200 and rise expotentially, it cost me almost $600 for the telco 
to install 3100 metres of dry copper for my SDSL line, which costs $70/month.

      Don't forget to factor in 13% taxes on service and installation also.

 >
 > Fifty downlinks at $20/month would be cost recovery --  maybe.

      very much "maybe" here.

 >
 > I only recall a fairly short period of time when George and John both
 > had in excess of fifty downlinks each. Shortly after that, something
 > better than dialup (read: ISDN) became available to some, and additional
 > hubs began to grow. Look at the current "fidohub" list in the Fidonews
 > and note the types of connectivity now in place for the majority of
 > those listed. You'll find that those that are not dialup are ISDN or
 > ADSL with the exception of only a very few. ADSL only became available
 > in most cities in late 1999. ISDN, though available as early as 1994,
 > was a rather expensive technology to implement for a casual user. My 64k
 > ISDN link in 1998 (immediately pre-ADSL) cost me $225/month.

      Here, a dual SPID ISDN line costs $77/month per end, and no metering,
*unless* it's at an ISP, then it's an additional $0.10/meg dataflow cost from 
the telco.  (things may have changed, it's been some time since I priced out 
ISDN service) And a $200+ install fee.

 >TC> Fido has been about cost recovery not paying your house payment off
 >TC> the backs of sysops. They are were appreciated by many but cost are
 >TC> minimal you can run a hub now for less than 20 per month so no one
 >TC> should be paying more than a dollar for a feed now...
 >
 > And.. again.. my comments were not about NOW.. but about THEN... in
 > reference to your allegations of "monopoly".. of which, while there were
 > few WILLING, it was by far anything resembling a monopoly.

      Even today, your comments could be quite appropriate here, especially
since the cableco won't let their customers operate servers on their 
cablemodems, and the only ADSL service available, you guessed it - the telco, 
uses 10.10.x.x ip's linked to their own firewall/router which supplies it's own 
NAT.  If you want a 'real' static ip, expect to pay double to triple what the 
base service costs.







                       .....Bob

--- GEcho/32 & IM 2.50
 * Origin: http://www.nwstar.com (1:140/12)

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