From: pcm@rahul.net (Peter C. McCluskey)
> hibbert@netcom.com (hibbert@netcom.com) writes:
>
>>>Brian D. Williams said:
>>> The future? if we ever get permission to do long distance, I
>>>predict flat rate pricing.
>
>>I believe that the customers will demand it. Why will the LDCs
>>be able to provide unlimited service at a flat rate?
> For the same reason that ISPs are currently able to provide
>"unlimited" internet access. There doesn't appear to be any major
>obstacle to switching most of the phone system to run over the
>internet (although there are lots of minor obstacles and the
>incentives to start the switch are fairly weak). Of course the
>term "unlimited" as used by ISPs is somewhat deceptive, but
>is close enough to the truth to satisfy more people than it
>offends.
Actually there IS a major problem, the Internet will basically have
to be expanded by factors of several thousands to even begin
handling the traffic.
Even a small C.O. has 100,000 lines, times 64kbs of DEDICATED
bandwidth (we call it QOS or quality of service) and your talking
trunks of 64,000,000,000 bits per second, or 3-6 OC-192 circuits
and the routers to match per C.O. Now your talking times 200 or so
C.Os per state times 50 states.
My point? The existing Internet has only a tiny fraction of a
percent of the bandwidth needed, and virtually none of the quality
assurance based routers it will need.
Brian
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