stephen(_at_)sprunk(_dot_)org (Stephen Sprunk) wrote on 20.11.04 in
<004201c4cf22$768a7680$6801a8c0(_at_)stephen>:
Thus spake "Kai Henningsen" <kaih(_at_)khms(_dot_)westfalen(_dot_)de>
michel(_at_)arneill-py(_dot_)sacramento(_dot_)ca(_dot_)us (Michel Py)
wrote on 16.11.04 in
<DD7FE473A8C3C245ADA2A2FE1709D90B0DB487(_at_)server2003(_dot_)arneill-py(_dot_)sacramento(_dot_)c
a.us>:
I think you missed the point. As of today, IPv6 is in the same situation
ISDN has always been:
I Still Don't Need.
^ ^ ^ ^
Whereas I have used ISDN for over a decade now, and so have enough Germans
that it's been very many years that pretty much every BBS switched to
support ISDN.
State-supported monopolies have an advantage in rolling out technologies
widely before there's enough demand to justify them, solving the
chicken-and-egg problem. We choose to put the cost of new technology where
(in our opinion) it belongs: on the people that are using it. Different
deployment rates (and subsidy rates) result which are appropriate for each
culture.
But the monopoly ended long ago; the pricing continues pretty much
unchanged. So it seems to me there's something wrong with your analysis.
ISTR that the local competition (the one who's laying down cables like
crazy, pretty much every time a street is dug up) started with offering
ISDN *only* (not sure if they ever changed).
Anyway, back when ISDN was rolled out, I was under the impression that the
US generally had digital exchanges, and Germany still had lots of pre-
digital ones - tone dialling was only just becoming available and
certainly not everywhere, whereas from what I heard pulse dialling in the
US was essentially dead for a good while. (I have never heard that you can
do Caller ID on analog lines over here, either. People who want that use
ISDN.)
So this says to me that the rollout of the basics here was *later* than in
the US - not earlier.
But I also remember many tales of woe about battling ISDN standards in the
US, and every phone company having their incompatible own. Possibly that
had quite a bit to do with the differing results ...
No, I don't think it was a question of monopoly. Rather, it looks a lot
like the good old OS/2 marketing problem - you *can* market a technology
to death.
Over here, a standard ISDN line (two channels, three numbers) costs pretty
much exactly the same as two analog lines (two channels, two numbers), and
always has.
Makes for a slightly different cost equation.
Whereas here an ISDN line still costs at least twice as much as two analog
lines, plus often carries per-minute tolls even for local calls which are
toll-free with analog.
Well, ours aren't toll-free either way.
My general impression is that nobody in the phone company business here
likes providing POTS.
I should perhaps add that as far as I can tell, the vast majority of DSL
is via phone (pretty much none per tv cable - for some reason, that
business never got off the ground here despite regulatory pressure to do
so), and the first offers I can recall were as add-on to ISDN. I believe
it was quite a while before it was offered as add-on to POTS, too.
the majority of phones and dial-up still are analog and now ISDN
costs _more_ than DSL or cable for low-end data.
That's just ridiculous.
But that's the situation in the US... DSL/Cable are significantly cheaper
and faster than ISDN, often by a factor of 10x or more per kbps.
Sure - but over here the standard "save EUR XXX" packet is DSL+ISDN-for-
phone, or at least that's my impression.
MfG Kai
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