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Xref: sserve comp.sys.powerpc:35042 comp.sys.intel:32611 comp.unix.bsd:16298 comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:8234 comp.unix.sys5.r4:9371 comp.unix.misc:16262 comp.os.linux.development:23805 comp.os.linux.misc:36063 comp.os.386bsd.development:3268 comp.os.386bsd.misc:5543 comp.os.misc:3859 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!uwm.edu!news.alpha.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!ncar!newshost.lanl.gov!beta.lanl.gov!crs From: crs@beta.lanl.gov (Charlie Sorsby) Newsgroups: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.sys.intel,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.sys5.r4,comp.unix.misc,comp.os.linux.development,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.misc Subject: Re: flat rates for Internet/phone (Re: X on dial-in) Date: 3 Mar 1995 16:27:30 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natn'l Laboratory Lines: 37 Message-ID: <3j7g1i$d2f@newshost.lanl.gov> References: <D3s19v.4M7@pe1chl.ampr.org> <SHIRONO.95Feb22171003@jade.ssd.csd.harris.com> <3j2f95$e6g@dawn.mmm.com> <lurch-0203952352070001@192.0.2.1> NNTP-Posting-Host: beta.lanl.gov In article <lurch-0203952352070001@192.0.2.1>, Erik Kloeppel <lurch@eskimo.com> wrote: = [...] My partner is US-West, pays the basic $16.25 or = so a month, and uses the phone for 6 to 7 hours a day. That's off hook, = online. = = I use GTE, and go the same number of hours a day. I have yet to pay more than = my basic monthly fee. = = Figure 6 hours a day. 42 hours a week. 128 hours a month. any way you slice = it, that looks like 25% of the time is off hook dialed out. some 8 times = that 3% suggested average.. Now suppose that, say, half or more of the subscribers to your respective phone companies were to use their phones that much. What do you imagine would happen to the "basic monthly fee" for all subscribers of those phone companies? Still a flat rate but, perhaps, a *higher* flat rate? What started all this is not that it isn't possible for a few people to make significantly more than normal use of their particular phone service nor was it any ignorance of what "flat rate" means on the part of posters. It was the simple statement that, if a big enough fraction of subscribers use a big enough fraction of available resources, that "flat rate" is likely to become a higher flat rate--or, alternatively, a flat rate will become unavailable. As to maximum-use thresholds under flat rate, I would expect that threshold to depend, also, on how many subscribers' use is significantly above average. All resources are finite. -- Best, Charlie "Older than dirt" Sorsby "I'm the NRA!" crs@lanl.gov