At 03:51 PM 11/28/2001 -0500, Keith Moore wrote: > > IP Addresses cannot at once be scarce enough to charge for and > > non-scarce enough that scarcity is a non-issue. > >IPv4 scarcity is an issue, at least for customers. Whether it's >an issue for large ISPs is a different question. > >The cable ISP isn't really charging per-IP addresses; rather it's >charging per-residence. The motiviation is not the scarcity of IP >addresses, but the scarcity of available dollars per customer - >in other words, they have an assumption that the amount of income they >can get from residental Internet service is more-or-less a constant >times the number of residental customers served.
This is in fact correct and backed up by a vast body of consumer research...for various services there are well know "break points" by which consumer behavior begins to change irrespective of the perceived value of the service. One of those is $35.00. The cable industry was able to resist intrusions by satellite dishes until they began to raise prices above the $40 range ..that price point became a trigger in the minds of consumers that they should at least look at alternatives and it was then that dishes started to take off. Consumers essentially do not price shop services below the $40 range which is why residential telephone prices are deliberately kept close to that point thus preventing CLEC from gaining access to the market. Business lines are another matter ..and those CLEC' that focused on business lines have done OK. There are lots of ISP offering good DSL service with static IP addresses (usually 4) for 99.00 + but that is a price point consumers are resistant to pay for the perceived value of the service. Another well known point is $199 once consumer electronics start to hit that price point ..such as VCR's or DVD the rate of adoption sharply rises. This is Consumer Marketing 101 offered at fine business schools everywhere. >So they use flat-rate, per-residence pricing to attract the largest >number of residential customers. But they get annoyed when the >service is shared over multiple residences. They'd get just as >annoyed if the mechanism were IPv6 instead of NAT. > >Keith >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Richard Shockey, Senior Manager, Strategic Technology Initiatives NeuStar Inc. 45980 Center Oak Plaza Bldg 8 Sterling, VA 20166 1120 Vermont Ave NW Suite 400 Washington DC 20005 Voice 571.434.5651 Cell : 314.503.0640, Fax: 815.333.1237 <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.neustar.biz> <http://www.enum.org> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
