[Linux-Anyway] Re: Feel like messing things up
- From: Horror Vacui <horrorvacui@xxxxxxx>
- To: Linux-Anyway@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:25:22 +0200
Godwin Stewart wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Jul 2002 01:33:45 -0700, Raquel Rice <raquel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>wrote to Linux-Anyway@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
>
>
>>I'm in Northern California and DSL isn't available here! I had to
>>get ISDN ... at great expense.
>>
>>
>
>Isn't cable available either? Over here in Europe we get the (perhaps false)
>impression that everyone in the US has access to some form of broadband.
>
>
>
They don't, but I believe that the european impression that people in US
get internet much cheaper is true. I've got myself ADSL not because of
the speed, but because it was the first offer that included a flat fee.
Before that, it was incredibly expensive (the prices are lower now). To
cut my costs, I've used to do a kind of net-ripping; dialing in, loading
a page and opening all interesting links in a new browser window, than
dial-out to read, then dial in again... Even so, my bimonthly bill for
approximately 1,5 - 2 hours of telephone line use (only modem
connections) was at the beginning something between 250 and 300 euro, I
paid an access fee of about 20 euro, and whatever it was for normal
telephone services. Later I got quite fed up and used internet less, but
never managed to pay anything less than 180 euro. Mind you, this was an
offer for "power-users" - there was another model for "moderate users",
with an access fee of something like 7 euro, and per-minute fee quite
similar to the telephone line use. That meant paying a per-minute fee to
ISP, the same amount per-minute to telecom, and would make my bill reach
600 euro, for 33.6 dialup.
Now I pay a flat fee of about 50 euro and can stay online as long as I
wish (redialing every 8 hours).
This was pre-telecom-liberalisation, it was the only telecom and only
ISP around. Now there are some others, but nearly all infrastructure is
owned by them, and they can still dictate prices. They had to lower the
prices, but because other ISPs and telcos have to use their
infrastructures, they can't really compete. So we have the funny
situation that the former monopolist with his extortionate fees now
provides some services cheapest - like ADSL.
There are very cheap offers for cable access, only it's not available
where I live.
Cheers
Horror Vacui
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