LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Evan Bourlotos <evan@cs.adelaide.edu.au>
  To  : Mark Newton <newton@atdot.dotat.org>
  Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 17:23:28 +0900

Re: BPA & 100mb / Day Limit

I agree with the policy in principle and they are within their rights to
change their terms, I feel that they should give the users who signed up
for contracts under certain conditions to opt out without penalty as these
conditions have now changed. I got a stack load of emails from friends
saying they were going to the TIO and their fathers were gonna talk to
their lawyers, it appears they have all signed up recently for 18 month
contracts and now feel constrained by the NEW conditions.

I am not too fussed as within the week I have had it I think I managed
about 200 mg but it is annoying when they pull a fast one like that.

Regards

evan

>On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 05:28:02PM +0930, Adam Dixon wrote:
>
> > Can anyone tell me though, intellegantly why as of late dialups have lost
> > there 'unlimitability' and broad band as it will be next month has also
lost
> > it. Did data traffic and maintainance costs boom or something that in the
> > last 6months - year they have had to resort to almost killing internet
> > usage?
> 
>Providers offer "unlimited" plans because they want to monopolize a 
>particular market space.  So, in an event to be so much stunningly 
>cheaper than their competition that you'd be foolish to not use them,
>they make a business decision to lose tens to hundreds of dollars
>per customer per month.
>
>This isn't limited to Internet access, by the way.  It's currently
>rampant through all facets of telecommunications.
>
>Because they're losing money, they can't do it forever.  So, there's
>a point where they need to say, "If I haven't acheived something like
>monopoly by date XXXXX, I'll need to make a decision about whether I
>stop doing it or go bankrupt."  Date XXXXX looms faster as more time
>goes by, because if you're losing a certain amount of money per customer
>your burn rate increases as you get more customers.
>
>Hidden in there is the expectation that the costs of offering the 
>service will drop as time goes by, so your cost structure might be
>sustainable one day if you wait for long enough.  But you can't
>wait for ever, because you only have a finite amount of money to lose.
>
>One.Tel is an example of someone who went bankrupt.  Telstra, Primus,
>Dingo Blue, and virtually everyone else who ever used to offer an 
>"Unlimited" plan, are the ones who have decided that it's better to
>stay in business.  And the way to stay in business is to stop pretending
>that it's economically sustainable to offer infinite capacity for zero
>dollars.
>
>Why is it happening now?  Because the dotcom frenzy is over.  A year 
>and a half ago there was a ready supply of burnable cash, because 
>dumb shareholders kept ploughing money into internet companies.  You're
>an Internet company and you're about to run out of money?  Sell some
>of your shares!  Plenty of cash, right?  Well, not anymore.
>
>   - mark
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>I tried an internal modem,                    newton@atdot.dotat.org
>     but it hurt when I walked.                          Mark Newton
>----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----
>
>-- 
>LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
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>
>
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Evan Bourlotos              Email: evan@cs.adelaide.edu.au             |
| BSc, MCS                    WWW:   http://www.cs.adelaide.edu.au/~evan |
| University of Adelaide      Phone: +61 8 8234 5522 (Work)              |
| South Australia 5005        Fax:   +61 8 8234 5530 (Work Fax)          |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+ 

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