The question is where are the real costs of a local phone call?
Are they in the call setup? Are they in the length of time for
the call? Some combination? What switch resources need to be expanded
to deal with long holding time calls? What switch resources can be
reduced if you need to process fewer call setups?
It is possible that modem calls are a bad deal for phone companies, but
it is also possible they are a good deal. Does anyone really know?
-Jeff Ogden
Merit
Tuppence worth: A largish Scandinavian PTT evaluated their costs
a couple of years ago and found that the call setup cost them on the
order of USD 1.50 and the conversation practically nothing (this is
from speaking to one of their senior tech people). This may be
ignoring the fact that if the conversation is "free", then people
(and modems) tend to talk longer, but they actually wanted to change
their charging structure to match, but the regulators refused.
Umm ... what is com-priv stuff doing on NANOG?
Don't forget to take into account, that the majority of the Telcos' charge
metered rates for commercial local calls (and even non-commercial in sime
areas). Therefore, they are deriving revenue from the use of the local
facilities and they should have the operating revenues generated from
these charges to re-invest in local switches, etc. The local per
minuite rate in our markets is not inexpensive, and is charged to all
call originators.
R S Ashton
Ashton Communications Corporation
ACNET.NET