LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Simon Hackett <simon@internode.com.au>
  To  : Jason Tan <jason@rebel.rebel.net.au>
  Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:42:03 +1030

Re: AOL? or best ISP

At 7:23 PM +1030 23/1/01, Jason Tan wrote:
>Bandwidth is not free, but cached bytes are or very close to it after you
>pay for the equipment, configuration and maintenance.

And at a replacement cost of about $250,000 plus a reasonable 
allocation forward for maintenance on the cacheing equipment we run 
here, tell me again where my cached bytes were so cheap?

We have a lot of equipment devoted to cacheing because for us its a 
performance issue - it helps to make the Internet seem quick for our 
customers - and whether the effective dollars-per-MB rate is 
acceptable to them is a choice they can (and do) make - it being a 
(relatively) free country.

>
>As an aside I was under the impression it was typcially cheaper equipment
>wise for you to accept isdn calls than modem calls.

That's only correct if one runs separate indial pools for each 
incoming call type. That happens to be both more expensive and far 
less efficient in terms of the pooling of spare lines than running 
one 'big' pool - which is what we do here.

Also note that the telstra line rental is insensitive to the use the 
line is put to as well - Telstra don't charge less if a line is only 
used for ISDN indial calls.

>Ie a your typcial terminal server chassis required additonal hardware to
>terminate modem calls but could typcially terminate as many isdn B
>channels as it coudl modem calls, without that additonal hardware.

Because Telstra charge so much for line rental anyway (on ISDN 
especially), it's most cost effective to run one large multi-purpose 
pool rather than 'n' smaller pools (it's also far more effective in 
terms of pooling spare indial line capacity).

When one runs more than one access server in a stack, Telstra hit a 
random stack member with every new incoming call. Although ISDN can, 
in protocol terms, allow us to signal Telstra with a request to move 
the call to another box with spare DSP capacity, Telstra refuse to 
honour that protocol exchange in this country and that option is not 
available. In this country, when a call hits a stack member, its 'use 
it or (have the customer) loose it'.

Hence, if we do not full provision all boxes in the stack with enough 
DSP capacity to handle a 100% analog call load at worst, we stand a 
chance of doing the terrible thing that ISP's try hard to insist that 
they never do - answer a call and then immediately drop it, at the 
customers' expense.

Other ISP's might be comfortable with that situation but I most 
certainly would not be.

On the rest of your message:

I'm not going to debate you on the merits or otherwise of where we 
choose to spend our profits. That's our choice, and we're comfortable 
with it. Our customers direct concern is whether they're getting 
sufficient value on their service for the money they're paying for 
it. I do think that whether we use those profits on things that 
materially improve the telecommunications landscape in this country 
is a good thing to use them for. You are free to disagree, as you 
seem to do, and that's just fine.

I will make the statement, however, that if you don't encourage 
people like us to succeed, I promise you that you'll never get that 
fibre 10 metres from your front door that you say you want, because 
without competition, Telstra will never, ever, do that for you. ever. 
So that's your choice.

>
>And is certainly not doing "joe blow" user a whole lot of direct good.
>

Depends whether 'joe blow' wants to see flat rate untimed national 
voice calls this year, or in 10 years time, doesn't it.

Now, you might find it personally more rewarding to wait for Telstra 
or Optus to be innovative, but I am choosing to spend my money where 
my mouth is - instead of hoping for that fibre-laden, cheap phone 
calls future, I'm actually helping to build it. I'm comfortable with 
the choices I'm making, as you presumably are with yours.

'nuff said.

Cheers,
Simon


---
Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: simon@internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777

-- 
LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
  mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject