stephen@xxxxxxxxxx (Stephen Sprunk) wrote on 20.11.04 in <004201c4cf22$768a7680$6801a8c0@stephen>: > Thus spake "Kai Henningsen" <kaih@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > michel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michel Py) wrote on 16.11.04 in > > <DD7FE473A8C3C245ADA2A2FE1709D90B0DB487@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > 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 _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf