Re: 95th Percentile = Lame (fwd)

[James Thomason <james () divide org>]

> No.
>
> The issue here is "incremental" cost.  Once the circuits are all
> provisioned, it doesn't matter what you send over them, true.  But it's
> not the *loops* that cost you money.  It's the backbones.  It's the
> *aggregate* total of the speeds of the *router ports* (which is what
> you're charging for, anyway), not the aggregate total of the speeds of
> the *loops*, that is the real issue here.
>
> The telco charges me the same thing for the loop regardless of howmany
> timeslots I provision the customer for in the router.

I hear what you are saying here.  But do you not think that these costs
can be quantified, and reduced to a common denominator?

Should not the cost of provisioning "excess" bandwidth be part of the
BASIS cost you pass on to customers?  Should not other networks who
currently dump traffic to you "freely" pay that cost as well?  

In a simplified sane model: 

My Cost: Circuits       c
         Power          p
         Space          s
         Equipment      e
         Other          o
         ----------------
         c+p+s+e+o = C(ost)

C + P(remimum)          = Cost to Customer
C + T(arrif)            = Cost to Providers

The cost (C) must be paid for every bit that traverses my network, either
from customers or "peer" networks. The current non-quantified C is paid
for completely by customers - SOMETIMES and MAYBE, since we bill on an
average instead of a value.  Some customers pay for other customers
traffic, and some get traffic for free. 

Does your stock broker bill you on an average number of shares for a set
of transactions?  Or does he charge you a per share fee?  Are you SURE?


> Since that's true, it's useful to have *some* way to allow the
> provisioned bandwidth to float up a little closer to the aggregate
> usable bandwidth in my backbone, since it does *in fact* not cost me
> anything.
>
> (Anyone whose provisioned their backbone to 100% of their aggregate
> access bandwidth -- in an access network, not a server farm one -- just
> doesn't understand the business.  *Everyone* bandwidth-surfs.  The
> billing approaches we're talking about are just a slightly better way
> of matching the two numbers.)
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> -- 
> Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra () baylink com
> Member of the Technical Staff     Baylink
> The Suncoast Freenet         The Things I Think
> Tampa Bay, Florida        http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 804 5015
>
>    OS/X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows