The Big Boys
Finally - a CATV Web Server
I found this following item in the Internet News.
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www
From: awhite@csn.org (Andy White)
Subject: ANNOUNCE: CableLabs WWW Server
Message-ID:
Summary: Finally, a CATV Web Server!
Organization: Cable Television Laboratories, Inc.
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 05:31:05 GMT
Lines: 25
"
Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs) is pleased to announce
its new Web Server. Check out the home page at
http://www.cablelabs.com/
to learn what we're up to, and hopefully, in the coming weeks and months, find
out what's in store for the Information Superhighway from the perspective
of the cable industry's R&D consortium. Currently, the server contains
information on lab activities, press releases, and a description of what
we do; in the future, look for more background information on cable systems
as well as various technologies that will enable cable operators to provide a
variety of information services.
CableLabs is a non-profit, privately held corporation. Our members are
cable operators who account for 85% of the cable subscribers in the United
States, 70% of the subscribers in Canada, and 10% of the subscribers in
Mexico.
This is a work in progress, and we (or at least I, personally) would like
feedback on our presentation. Please follow up via e-mail to me at
"a.white@cablelabs.com" (and NOT at this address!) I will try to respond
when and where possible. Thank you for your consideration -"
Having browsed through this
web server, I have to say that I am impressed with the types
of things that the cable consortium seems to be wanting to do. And if not with
what they actually are doing, then with the amount of money the seem ready
to throw at the tasks they have set themselves.
Other comments as I get the time.
BC Tel. socks it to BBSs
The prospective increase in rates (or change in category from Metered
Overline to Business Overline) will increase our local incoming phone line
costs by over 100% from $30.15/line to 87.30/line. We already have standard
business lines in our business office for voice calls so it won't affect us
there.
Although this is a considerable jump, the actual phone lines are only a part
of our cost of providing service to our customers. We expect that our rates
will not change much if any due to this. The tradition of continuing lower
communications costs in all of the other components of our system will
offset the increase in the 'local loop' cost over a relatively short period
of time. If anything, this will only mean that the next price drop won't be
as soon.
Our service is very much usage based, and simply by allowing our lines to
become busier we could pick up the revenue needed to
meet the increased cost. We have spare capacity because our customers expect
to rarely if ever get a busy signal; they want access at their convenience
so they don't have to spend time repeat dialing for access.
We won't actually let our lines become busier, that's not the kind of
provider we are. The thing is that we COULD let them become busier because
they are not even close to 100% loaded as are many of the lines to BBS's.
Wimsey is committed to providing cost effective, premium Internet access.
Much of our success is due to the fact that we have a number of technically
capable people on our staff ready to aid our users. The rest is due to the
fact that we keep our lines from being choked, even at our peak times.
In turn,
BC Tel. has provided a high quality service for years. Much of this has been
because they were/are a regulated monopoly and complaints to the CRTC would
bring inspection from the same people they had to go to for rate increases
and such. The deregulation of the long distance telephone market has meant a
dramatic shift in revenues, and if you hadn't noticed, it has also dropped
their level of service somewhat. TANSTAAFL - "There Ain't No Such Thing As A
Free Lunch"
We are not appologizing for BC Tel. in any way, merely being realistic. It
has been well documented that the long distance revenues have been
subsidizing the 'local loop' services, even for business lines. If past
patterns repeat themselves, Canadian telephone companies can also expect
competition even in the 'local loop' in the not too distant future. What
this does is place a great pressure on them to rationalize their rate
structure so that there is less cross subsidization and more 'pay for what
you get'.
The Business Metered rates have been percieved by them as a thorn in their
sides for a long time. It was an artificial entity from day one, and this
move to limit its application to users of 3 lines or less is likely
the first of many. We expect them to abolish it altogether at some time. This
reflects the fact that currently the difference between the cost of
provision of service for each of the several varieties of phone voice
services are roughly the same, differing only in how busy the line is on
average. In other juresdictions this fact is recognized by having timed
service as the basic service - you pay for how long you use the facilities
with a basic minimum to cover the cost of the actual connection to the
central office. Wimsey uses this paradigm itself - you pay by the minute.
The one thing that we feel is not warranted in this case is BC Tel.
expecting to collect their typical 'construction' charge on changing the
classification of Business Metered lines to regular Business lines if/when
this rate actually goes into effect. The old paper methods of tracking line
charges and paper records has been replaced with systems which could change
all affected line records in seconds. No visit by an installer or changes to
wiring or in fact any human intervention is required beyond the change in
the computer records. Charging anything on a per line basis is unreasonable.
A single minimal charge for converting all lines in an overline group (our 2
main phone numbers are each overline groups) would not be unreasonable.
This potentially massive construction charge has pushed us to not only
respond to the letter from BC Tel. regarding this change, but to ask you,
our customers, to do the same. The monthly increase in rates, while massive
in itself, was not entirely unexpected in our case. We will respond to this
as well simply because of the fact that it is so abrupt. If you feel
strongly about this we urge you too to respond.
A copy of your thoughts on this change should be sent to the following two
addresses:
Mr. Allan J. Darling
Secretary General
CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2
Fax: (819) 953-0795
Re: BC TEL Tariff Notice 3121
Ms. Sandra Hertz
Director, Regulatory Matters
BC TEL
18th Floor - 3777 Kingsway
Burnaby, B.C. V5H 3Z7
Fax: (604) 430-9653
We will post here a copy of our response to this Tariff. If you send a
response, please send us a copy too.
Wimsey's Address
Admin@wimsey.com
Computer World in their July '94 issue, reports that
Oracle Corp. and one
of the AT&T breakup companies BellSouth have signed a contract to deliver
analog, digital and telecommunications services over fiber optic/coaxial
cable to a select group of users.
This is a step in the direction of the '500 channel' TV version of the
Digital Superhighway. In our opinion, this type of service will fail once
the true cost of the facility is passed on to the consumer. Such test
marketing in the past has gone over very well with the initial pilot group
but has failed to catch on once the service was implemented on a commercial
basis because the cost of delivery of the commercial service was beyond the
public's perception of the value of the service. It might be that the bias
of the public towards undervaluing technology in general is the problem.
Many consumers feel that the trend to rapidly declining prices of
electronic goods will continue to the point where they get everything for
nothing. In our experience (here in Vancouver where the cost of computer
hardware averages less than anywhere else in North America) we are rapidly
approaching the, and in some cases have long passed, the point where the
cost of selling technology far outweighs the cost of the item being sold.
The problem is that until computers can be purchased by consumers in the
same way they now purchase commodity items, the prices will bottom out and
start to rise again because of the increasing human cost of sales.