Re: Metallic DSL in Tokyo

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

Tod McQuillin (devin@example.com) wrote:

> Thanks for the info Jonathan.  Do you know which ports are blocked
> exactly?

If they block them (and David B. said they do in his post), it
would be the well-known ports; that is, those numbered below
1024.

> Looks like I may have to buckle down and spend 32,000 a month (plus the
> setup and new NTT line costs -- ouch!)

Still a bargain when you consider that OCN costs about that much and
and has no service level guarantee. 

The main reasons that it costs that much to have commercial,
server-OK DSL are along the lines of:

1) That takes more upstream bandwidth from the service provider
   when servers are being run by the DSL customers, and the 
   increased traffic probably will require a bigger router;

2) It's a value-added service; people running servers are generally
   doing so either to make a profit directly (ebusiness, etc.) or
   in support of something that makes a profit.  I know that doesn't
   help us hobbyists who are just running a server for fun, but
   service providers can't (as a business model) be policing the
   consumer DSL pool for servers that are hobbyist and OK, and 
   others that are business-oriented and not OK.  The only practical
   dividing line is to have a consumer DSL pool which is run just like
   their dial-up pools (no servers, etc.) and a commercial pool that
   is run like their leased line pool (you get a handful of routable
   IP addresses and can run any kind of server you want);

3) When a service provider that also offers ISDN leased lines and 
   fixed-IP dialup services starts offering DSL with fixed-IP and
   server usage, it can probably expect those business areas to take
   a major hit, since DSL will deliver more bang for less buck.  But
   service providers do need to make money, and those other services
   are usually important to that, so if the revenue for those services
   gets decimated by business-grade DSL, then DSL also has to make
   up that shortfall.
   

Even at 32,000 yen per month, that's far cheaper and a whole lot
faster than a 128K ISDN leased line, so while that hurts a bit for
a hobbyist, it's not a bad deal relatively.

Jonathan