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Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Phoenix who wrote (4289)	1/20/2000 11:32:00 AM
From: telecomguy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Gary, I think we are possibly talking about different levels here. When I talk about bandwidth not being free at the Carrier level, I am talking abou CARRIERS NOT Internet Service Providers or Application Service Providers. The Carriers WILL charge for bandwidth when an ISP or an ASP comes to them to carry their data on the Internet. Now, all your examples of free access are based on ISP's or ASP's who decide that for market penetration purpose, give away access for free in order to make money off advertising or market research information or some other monetization strategy based on hits on their portal. So I am talking about Carriers and you are talking about essentially resellers (ISP, ASP) who do NOT own capacity or backbone and who BUY bandwidth and capacity from the Carriers (typically your old-world circuit switched PTT's!) and add service/application to make their money as you say. Please do not confuse companies like Freeserve as a CARRIER. What the retail level does with bandwidth and access as a loss-leader/marketing strategy has NOTHING to do with whether the bandwidth is ultimately free. Bandwidth cannot ultimately be free because Carriers have to invest billions to build and manage the network and they HAVE to recoup this investment.