Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 13:22:23 -0700 (PDT) From: patl@phoenix.volant.org To: ac199@hwcn.org Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: My verdict on 2.2.7... Message-ID: <ML-3.3.901311743.9344.patl@asimov> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980724145950.13066C-100000@localhost>
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> On Fri, 24 Jul 1998 patl@phoenix.volant.org wrote: > > > Ok, let's take long distance. Long distance carriers are currently > > touting their 'ten cents a minute' plans. So a 20 hour download > > would cost $120. Local rates for a business line run around five > > cents a minute, which would cut it to $60. Local residential rates > > are a bit more complex; but could drop it under the CD price. (Going > > to a 4 CD set kicked the price up enough to make the equation more > > reasonable.) > > You actually want to argue this!? No, I hadn't intended to. I was just responding to a question. It certainly wasn't intended to be argumentative. > Local rates for a business is: zero cents @ minute. Where do you live? Who's the local phone company? Pac Bell charges $.05/minute for local calls from a business line. They don't offer businesses any equivalent to the residential 'unlimited local calls' plan. (Or if they do, it's a new addition in the last couple of years.) I suspect that most RBOCs are the same. Outside the US, I wouldn't even care to speculate. Since the discussion started with 'Unless the call was free', I felt justified in restricting the response to long-distance and local toll calls. (Although, I'll admit that I should have phrased it as 'local toll calls' in my previous message.) > They only > need to cover the monthly fee and their Internet access. 'net > costs can vary, but I'll take what I pay: $25 for 200hours (if > you check my ISP's homepage it'll say 150hours, but it's wrong > :). I'll discount the monthly line fee, since that's a prereq > for owning a business in the first place. > > That's 12cents an hour. That means a business will pay something > on the order of $2.40 cents to download FreeBSD. Err. $25/200hrs == $2.50/20hrs. Exactly. No need to approximate. (Remember, the original message stipulated 20 hours for the download.) Assuming that you use up your entire time allotment for the month. If that download was the only logon for the month, it cost $25. If you go over the 200 hours, you need to amortize the total expense over the total number of hours used. It looks to me like you've just argued that what I called a 'free call' actually costs you $2.50... (I didn't bother to count ISP charges at all on the theory that it wasn't worth the trouble.) > The case for a non-business (in this case, me) works out to be > about the same. > > Okay, what about the long-distance case? > > Well, we'll keep the same ISP. Nevermind that this particular > ISP happens to have connection points in most major centres, > we'll still make the ld call home. > > My reference to long-distance was perhaps unfair. Because > someone in this house works for Bell (the phone company), our > phone bill gets chopped in half. Since the exchange rate makes > the CDs $60 (non-subscription), it'll be close. That is, indeed, an unfair advantage. There are various other plans available from a variety of long distance carriers that could net a user rates in the three-to-five cents a minute range. But most of us won't qualify for them. I chose ten cents because that seemed to be the lowest rate readily available to the average consumer. > However, if you can find a bulk reseller with lines that are > high-quality enough to use a modem over, you'll be able to beat > the CD price no problem, I believe. Yep, you probably can. But how much work will you have to put in, and what are the trade-offs? (Don't bother answering, it was a rhetorical question.) I was aiming at the general populace. People who are happy with their current phone company; or who want to stick with one of the big well known names. Remember, I wasn't trying to claim that it is -always- cheaper to buy the CD, only that it often can be; especially if you are stuck with a slow modem. > Of course, this is totally unreal. Internet access is available > within the local calling area for almost everyone now-a-days > (still keeping the same caveat about "Uh, I don't know where you > live, but..." :). There is simply no comparison at all for the > local case. Good thing you kept the 'almost'. Personally, I have absolutely no difficulty at all. I live in the heart of Silicon Valley, and have a Frame Relay line running into my home office. HOWEVER, my sister, living in one of the ten largest cities in New Mexico(*), has to make a long distance call to get to an ISP. It costs her 25 cents a minute. -Pat (*)Ok, I'm not actually sure where it ranks in the listings any more. But over half of the population of New Mexico is in the greater Albuquerque area. Add Santa Fe and Las Cruces, and there isn't much left. So it's a pretty safe bet that Silver City is still in the top 10. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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