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Re: Frame relay pricing (+Linux to be hurt!)



Reuven M. Lerner wrote:

> If I'm not mistaken, someone on linux-il told us several months ago
> that frame relay prices were probably going to drop in coming months.
> 
> Well, the lead article in Friday's Ha'aretz business section indicates
> that Bezeq rates will be changing quite a bit.  Regular telephone
> rates will drop quite a bit (about 32 percent, according to the
> article), but frame relay prices and Sifranet prices will rise by
> 21-37 percent).
> 
> >From what I understand, the committee's recommendation isn't final.
> But I would guess that they're closer to the truth than not...

As you mentioned, the new prices are only a recommendation of a
comitee. These recomendations are exactly the opposite of Bezeq's
business plan. According to this business plan, they intended to cut
the frame-relay prices on October. Earlier, when I didn't see
anything new, I asked my ISP, and was told that meanwhile Bezeq
would cut only the prices of the installation, from 1053 to 400 and
something. I looked at the site of Bezeq, and there are still no
signs for these new prices.

The recommendations you mention are a very bad news. While comitees
try to find ways how to lower the prices of Internet in Israel, they
come and try to do the opposite. There is even an idea to recognize
numbers of ISP's modems and to charge calls to them only once per
night; I think that before looking under the ground for solutions,
the direct costs of the Internet must be lowered. Not only ISPs and
frame-relay owners will benefit, but also end users and customers of
ISPs who will be charged lower prices thanks to the lower costs of
the ISPs, and will suffer less bankrupts of ISPs (remember DataServe/
StarNet/acTVnet/Shani/others !).

I propose that anybody here (Doron, are you there?) who has contacts
with staff of Missrad HaTikshoret or other influencing people (Miki
Eitan?) will try to help. This is not only critical in general for
the future of the Internet in Israel, but also to some of us, who
have the technical requirements to run a server (i.e. the strongest
OS for Internet servers - Linux of course, and technical expertize),
but lack a connection - thanks to the high costs of frame-relay in
Israel. The American experience is that many Linuxers connect their
machines to frame-relay and/or CATV and have a permanent server (web
server and/or mail server and/or FTP server and/or DNS and/or just a
mini ISP with PPP/SLIP modems). I believe that dozens of us will jump
on the frame-relay bandwagon, once the costs will be rational. The
prices of Bezeq were rational when the complement costs (charged by
the ISPs) began by $500-$600 for the minimal line. Now, that some
ISPs charge only $60-$70 (for limited use), but Bezeq prices remained
the same, the biggest cost becomes Bezeq, which does the minor job.
It is anomal, and I hope it will be changed.

-- 
Eli Marmor
marmor@elmar.co.il
El-Mar Software Ltd.