Re: [PLUG] Verizon blocking port 25

[bergman@merctech.com]

In the message dated: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:11:26 EDT,
The pithy ruminations from Art Alexion on 
<Re: [PLUG] Verizon blocking port 25> were:
=> 
=> On Aug 27, 2009, at 4:42 PM, John Kreno wrote:
=> 
=> >
=> >
=> > I suppose that I should be upset that I only get <x> minutes with my  
=> > cell phone plan?  "Once they start limiting your minutes, there's  
=> > not end to what they might do."  If I want more service, I should  
=> > pay more because it costs more to provide, no?
=> >
=> >
=> > No, It really doesn't. It's insanity to claim that it does. Once you  
=> > have a sub you have paid the bill for operating the service. Any of  
=> > the up sell that you get is almost pure profit. To think that your  
=> > premium customers are the ones who foot the bill is a horrible  
=> > business model. It's like txt messages, the whole thing is literally  
=> > stealing money out of the sub's pocket for a data channel that  
=> > already existed to the hand set for management overhead. And yes,  
=> > You and everyone else that has a cell should be outraged by that fact.
=> 
=> 
=> I was about to say the same thing, but then I considered that there is  
=> some additional bandwidth with additional minutes and that  
=> theoretically costs something.

You're each overlooking something:

	oversubscription

Think about the "network capacity", based on the number of cell towers, the 
tower-to-handset bandwidth and tower-to-backbone bandwidth. That 
capacity is finite, and can be expressed as "the number of people that can be 
using the network at once". Think of that capacity in terms of the number
of customers who can be using the network per minute.

Now, take a look at the number of subscribers.

That number is much greater than the network capacity. If each customer talks 
for a short amount of time, then the network can serve many customers[1]
(excluding call setup & breakdown overhead, backend call billing record
overhead), etc.

If a few customers are on-line for much greater lengths of time then they are 
effectively reducing the number of customers that can be served during that 
period, even if the cost-per-minute to carry their traffic is no greater.

Therefore, there is a strong incentive from the part of the carrier, and from 
the part of lower volume customers, to have higher volume customers pay more.


[1] some of those customers may be individuals making multiple calls, but
	from the perspective of network resources, as opposed to ethical
	fairness, it's all the same.

=> 
=> Of course their biggest expense is tracking your usage and sending you  
=> a bill.

Yep. We had little problem getting approval for $N million dollar purchases to 
support the billing system.


Mark "I've been trying to supress what I remember from working @ Cingular, 
	but it's coming back like a bad meal" Bergman

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