Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 6 Mar 2001
Note: the comments below are the unedited submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Daniel
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Prices fall

I remember back in 1995 the Internet was only available
through a few providers. Voyager being one of them charged
$10 per hour to use the Internet.

I think it's fair to say that prices have indeed fallen.
$10 for one hour 5 years ago versus $10 for unlimited time.

Unfortunately we'll always have this bandwidth problem,
because it is controlled by a monopolistic and anti-
competitive company.

Why it costs so much for data to travel a cable... who
knows.




From: spiro harvey
For : Right Of Reply (for publication)
Subj: the way of the net

Actually, prices have tumbled when compared to 10 years
ago..or more realistically 7 years ago when ISPs other than
the pioneers started popping onto the scene.

Compuserve, nearly a decade ago used to charge over $19 per
hour. of course, in wellington, you had the option of going
to citynet run by the wellington city council (not to be
confused with WCC's current project - citylink - the high
speed fibre local loop). but you had to put up with 2400
modems which would fall over constantly. but it was free and
all their lines were always busy because you could log in
for 3 hours at a time. it was basically the hacker's ISP
because they offered a vax account which had a nice menu
with gopher (sort of like text based web browsing and
searching) and a few other things you could play with. and
of course, some knew how to get shell access ;)

People like actrix and iconz used to charge for time AND
traffic up until a few years ago.

Actrix's fee's in the early 90's were about $7.50 per Mb of
international traffic and something much less than that for
national traffic (on top of time charges, mind). but actrix
maintain their own lists of what is national and what isn't
and sometimes that conflicts with reality seeing as they
don't seem to proactively check out new ISPs, and so on...

Prices have dropped down so much for dial in access that
ISPs aren't making money any more. in fact, I'd say most are
losing money. especially after telecom decided to tax ISPs
more in their infinite wisdom with the 0867 fiasco.

You can get flat rate dial in access these days for $20 a
month.

But broadband access and other high speed connections seem
to be where the ISPs are trying to recover their losses. I
don't see why carriers are still charging for traffic. it's
the carriers which are forcing ISPs to charge. and in turn
people running hosting services have to charge more to turn
a profit.

And it's turning people away from doing serious business in
NZ. everything which requires lots of traffic throughput is
hosted overseas. IHUG, for example, host their member pages
in the US because it's much much cheaper for them.

ISPs can only survive in this country if the carriers get
their heads out of their arses and start providing the ISPs
with flat rate access. and the ISPs need to be able to
provide free internet access and charge for services. like
tv over the net. the access comes free, but you pay for the
privelidge to do your own programming. same could be done in
a wide range of different areas, the ISPs just need to get
better access charges then apply themselves to thinking
about how they can start actually making money.. it's not
too difficult..i've got a few ideas myself, but i'll keep
them in case it becomes viable.

And I read on today's aardvark that ISPs are announcing
virus checking on the ISP side and claiming that this will
enable consumers to completely outsource their virus
problems... WRONG!!!!!!!!!

People don't just get viruses via email kiddies.. they get
viruses by downloading software, pirated and otherwise, by
ICQ, by hotmail and the other multitude of web based email
accounts, gnutella, usenet, etc etc... but people will relax
thinking that their ISPs are wonderful and thinking of
everything... but I digress...

At least ISPs are making a move in the right direction.
they're marketing it wrong, but for the Majority Of Users
(read: gullible clueless users) their marketing is spot on.

They'll make their money, people will still get viruses and
we'll all complain and get over it till the next time it
happens..
Now Have Your Say