Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)

[Travis Roy]

> This is certainly not authoritative but I've heard
> that, despite the ruling that ordered the telcos to
> allow their competitors (CLECs ?)  access to their
> COs, many DSL providers routinely found that access
> denied or impeded such that they were obliged to
> waste time and money on hiring lawyers and filing
> grievances, with the result that many of the smaller
> ones (which otherwise had a half-decent chance of
> making a go of it) went under.

That's why most dsl "providers" just resell Verizon's DSL lines. I asked
my buddy at MV about it, this is also usually what Earthlink does


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What most providers of DSL do, is wholesale from a "fabric" provider.
Usually it is barely worth it as the fabric providers are also selling
directly to the public too.  So the price they sell to you is just a
little below what they sell it at.

That, in a nutshell, is why the fabric providers have problems.

For example, if a fabric provider (whether it is verizon, choice-one, or
anyone else) is selling to the public at $49.95 for an entry level DSL
line. They may be selling to ISPs at something like $29.00 per line.  A
large company then ends up putting a line on the bill that says DSL is
$49.95 but the bill actually goes up by $54.95 because there are about
$5.00 in taxes on the line but the customer never sees a special entry,
instead the normal taxes that they're paying go up.  A customer won't
notice it because things like telephone bills are usually the same each
and every month.

The ISP then has to pay $29.00 for the line, plus the same $5.00 in
taxes, making the cost of the line $34.00.  Now, the ISP must turn
around and try to sell this line that they're paying $34.00 at a
competitve price, say $49.00 meaning that they make $15.00 per line. 
They're then supposed to make that $15 cover all the ISP costs, billing,
support, bandwidth, servers, personel, etc..  Oh, and the ISP can pass
the tax along, but it won't remain hidden making the end user think that
the large company is cheaper; especially as the large company can afford
to give away a free modem and installation (even though they charge the
ISP $125 for the modem and $60 for installation -- which at a profit of
$15.00 takes over a year to recoup).

Sorry, do I sound tainted?

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