Re: Internet access and telco usage patterns

[Ed Morin <edm () halcyon com>]

GTE has been promoting this model for several years now.  They seem to
be getting closer to something reasonable and I guess several ISP's are
considering and/or doing it.

Ed

On Mon, 1 Jul 1996, Michael Dillon wrote:

> There is an interesting column in PC Mag
> http://www.pcmag.com/issues/1513/pcmg0017.htm
> regarding "Will the Internet Crash" but Machrone understands the
> technology better than to do a chicken little imitation. 
>
> Anyway, he has an anecdote about what PC Mag's BBS did to telco usage
> patterns with about 100 dialup lines in use nationally. I know that Bell
> Canada in the toronto area of Canada and BC Tel in Vancouver have also run
> into problems caused by Internet dialup usage patterns that lead BC-Tel to
> drop selling Centrex to ISP's and Bell Canada to attempt putting ISP's
> into a higher tariff category. I suppose other telcos are running into
> similar capacity problems.
>
> Anyway, since some of the core providers in North America are telcos
> (Sprint, MCI) and since all the other ones work rather closely with the
> telcos for obvious reasons, I have a question.
>
> Has anybody looked at the practicality of installing modem pools in each
> telco switch location to grab the dialup user's traffic at the IP level
> and then route it to their ISP of choice for authentication and further
> routing. In other words, an ISP wouldn't buy phone lines, modems and
> terminal servers, they would buy IP access ports.
>
> I have heard of something like this (I think) going on in Britain where 
> Demon Internet services has Energis providing their dialin lines via
> something called the Virtual POP in which Demon has no equipment located
> outside their NOC and has the ability to switch capacity from location to
> location as load patterns change. Of course, this is probably not working
> at the IP level but simply dealing with routing of digitized switched
> audio calls.
>
> Michael Dillon                                   ISP & Internet Consulting
> Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-546-3049
> http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael () memra com

Ed Morin
Northwest Nexus Inc. (206) 455-3505 (voice)
Professional Internet Services
edm () nwnexus WA COM

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