RE: An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial

["Frank Bulk" <frnkblk () iname com>]

You're right, the major cost isn't the bandwidth (at least the in the U.S.),
but the current technologies (cable modem, DSL, and wireless) are thoroughly
asymmetric, and high upstreams kill the performance of the first and third.
In the shorter-term, it's cheaper to find some way to minimize upstream so
that everyone has decent performance that do the expensive field world to
split the shared medium (via deeper fiber, more radios, overlaying
frequencies, etc).

Long-term, fiber avoids the upstream performance issues.  

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu] On Behalf Of Alex
Rubenstein
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:02 PM
To: Taran Rampersad; nanog () merit edu
Subject: RE: An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial

<snip>

Am I the only one here who thinks that the major portion of the cost of
having a customer is *not* the bandwidth they use?