What he should be saying is "average connect rates to ASCEND TNTs and MAXes
is just over 30kbps".
Why?
Because, to my knowledge, this is all that the companies named below
actually use in their K56Flex infrastructure.
This ends up being an indictment of a particular product, not a technology
difference. Rickard ought to try calling some ISPs who use PM3s; he'd find,
as I have, that the consistent connect rates are in the mid-40kbps range
(basically identical to the X2 results he claims are so wonderful). I've
been all over the United States, and where I can get a PCM connection at all
(many hotels, for example have bastardizes telephone networks with multiple
A/D conversions that prevent it from working) I consistently get good
connections in the 40s.
That one product sucks does not mean that an *open standard* sucks when
taken in total, yet this is precisely what he appears to be ready to print.
---- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin http://www.mcs.net/ | T1's from $600 monthly to FULL DS-3 Service | NEW! K56Flex support on ALL modems Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ON ALL PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Fax: [+1 312 803-4929] | *SPAMBLOCK* Technology now included at no costOn Mon, Feb 16, 1998 at 11:45:01PM -0800, Blake Hudema wrote: > > I thing this would be of interest. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 20:08:33 -0600 > From: Jack Rickard <jack.rickard@boardwatch.com> > Reply-To: isp-ceo-owner@isp-ceo.com > To: isp-ceo@isp-ceo.com > Subject: Re: Nationwide Access - Please no Dweebs > > > We just finished a kind of interesting test series of 90 "national" dialup > ISPs who had POP in 25 area codes or more. We picked 5 POPs somewhat at > random from each ISP for 450 POPs. But we of course wound up with 328 > individual phone numbers. THe reason of course is that manyof these ISP's > gain a national footprint by purchasing POP services from national > companies who wholesale such services. I can tell you that MCI, UUNET, > PSINET, and GTE/BBN all do this. From what I can gather, the price ranges > from $7 to $13 per subscriber per month. Lower prices are for longer term > contracts and higher customer body count minimums. Also there is the basic > POP service or you can get POP service with tech support, etc. > > I don't want to spill the beans too hard as it is rather the center of our > March Boardwatch Issue and the Winter Directory which will be released at > the ISPCON show. But two things did jump out. I fear I'm going to take a > terrible beating from some very unhappy ISPs over part of it. The > K56flex/x2 battle is over. We have bought into the concept that these were > two peer technologies struggling for dominance for over a year. It is, > unfortunately, not so, and V.90 probably won't change it. Average connect > speed for x2 modems to x2 ports - long distance - was over 45kbps. K56flex > was just over 30 kbps. These two types of modems are not even in the same > class or comparable. > > The other aspect is of course call completion rate. We made 145,000 calls > to 450 POPs during the month of January. Average call completion rate of > 89% but it varied from a low of 63% to a high of 97%. > > IBM's dialup network is the best in the land gents. I met with them last > week to try to get them to get more into the wholesale business and it > looks good. Sprint has an excellent call completion rate right up at the > top in the 97% range. But they have older equipment and average connect > speeds were in the 27 kbps range. > > Right now MCI looks like the best source of national footprint. All x2, 45 > kbps average connect speed anywhere, and high nineties on the scale. And a > number of the ISP's were caught in the act of using them, so clearly they > offer the service. > > On the K56flex side, GTE/BBN look fully deployed. Good call completion, > but poor average connect speed due to the K56flex move. They do a lot of > POP wholesaling. > > I haven't seen many viable alternatives to wholesaling from a larger > service actually. The roaming thing never did quite happen. There is > somebody out there with kind of an interesting idea to aggregate CLEC pops > and package them for ISPs and I think they'll be at ISPCON. > > But the biggest trend is large nationals who haven't really been able to > compete with local ISPs on price because of the customer service thing. So > they are groking to the concept of just wholesaling it to smaller ISPs and > letting them do the hard work. And there are more of them getting into > it. AGIS is going to setup national dialup footprint and wholesale to > ISPs. And several other smaller backbones are making the same noise. I > think it is a coming thing and wiithin a year we think we'll see hundreds > > of national dialup ISPs operating from a dozen or so providers. > > The interesting part is the $7. We're kind of finally shaking out what the > true basic cost of providing dialup infrastructure is. It's something less > than $7 per customer. If we assume that the $19.95 price was correctly > arrived at by market forces, then that leaves about $13 to cover marketing, > support, and overhead. It's a bit shy of being all the riches of Crocius > I'm afraid, but it's a "good" business potentially. > > And I think end users will have the following criteria in the following > order: > > 1. Price > 2. Call Completion Rate > 3. National Footprint > 4. Connect Speed/modem match > 5 Customer Service. > > I rate national footprint higher than you've heard. But I think it > accounts for a good bit of the AOL huge membership. People do want to be > able to get on their service wherever they go, even if they rarely go > anywhere. Items 1 and 2 are soft in order. Too many busies will convert a > customer to reverse these two priorities. But I think the price sensitive > nature of the end user is consistently under rated. There are dozens of > hgher bandwidth schemes that all assume a $40 or $50 per month rate. There > is a band of power users that would be all over that instantly. But after > they are quickly absorbed, I think the entire industry will be surprised to > see the numbers of Internauts that stick with dialup at $15-$20 over xDSL > and Cable at $40. It will make headlines and come as a huge shock. But I > think it is true. > > So I see a lot of pressure to go national, and do it with someone who can > complete calls. > > Jack Rickard > Boardwatch > > > > _____ * ISP-CEO Email Discussion List * ____ > To Remove: mailto:remove-isp-ceo@isp-ceo.com > To Join: mailto:join-isp-ceo@isp-ceo.com > To Post: mailto:isp-ceo-owner@isp-ceo.com > > > - > To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with > 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. > Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/> - To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>