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| Author |
Message |
janc
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Dial in Line Usage
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Sep 23 01:57 UTC 2003 |
Mark asked me to run new statistics on dial-in line usage. Here's what
we've got for the last three months:
Usage between Fri Aug 1 00:00:00 2003 and Sun Aug 31 23:59:59 2003
lines hours percent
0: 474.82 63.87%
1: 204.68 27.53%
2: 53.76 7.23%
3: 9.27 1.25%
4: 0.84 0.11%
5: 0.04 0.01%
6: 0.00 0.00%
Usage between Tue Jul 1 00:00:00 2003 and Thu Jul 31 23:59:59 2003
0: 418.32 56.44%
1: 220.05 29.69%
2: 84.79 11.44%
3: 15.49 2.09%
4: 2.45 0.33%
5: 0.14 0.02%
6: 0.00 0.00%
Usage between Sun Jun 1 00:00:00 2003 and Mon Jun 30 23:59:59 2003
0: 385.93 53.67%
1: 240.82 33.49%
2: 72.35 10.06%
3: 15.98 2.22%
4: 3.62 0.50%
5: 0.36 0.05%
6: 0.01 0.00%
So in the last three months there was less than a minute when all six of
Grex's current dialin lines were in use. The real question is whether
we cut to three lines or four lines. So over the last three months, the
totals with various numbers of lines would have been
6 lines: 0 minutes of busy tones 0.00% chance of busy
5 lines: <1 minute of busy tones 0.00% chance of busy
4 lines: 33 minutes of busy tones 0.02% chance of busy
3 lines: 7 hours, 27 minutes of busy tones 0.34% chance of busy
Note the decimal point in the percentages. At three lines, we'd expect
that if a user calls in at a random time, then there would be one chance
in 300 of getting a busy tone. In practice, people don't call in at
random times, but are more likely to call in at busy times, so the
chances of a busy tone would be higher than that.
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| 95 responses total. |
dah
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response 1 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:03 UTC 2003 |
Listen, the only reason we keep the dial-in lines around is to satisfy
people's nostalgic taste for a genuine dial-up BBS. I don't see why we don't
just remove all but one line, in order to emulate, nostalgically, the actual
fun people had dialing-up genuine dial-up BBSs.
We'd save money AND improve service.
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aruba
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response 2 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:05 UTC 2003 |
Thanks Jan. Grex's Centrex contract is due to expire in October. I called
Ameritech and asked for quotes on how much it would cost us to stay on
Centrex, and how much it would cost to switch to a regular trunk-hunt
system. I had to augment the information they sent with some charges not
included (911 charges and federal taxes), but I think I got everything. The
results are:
What we pay now:
$20.00 overhead for Centrex
$19.81 per line
--------
$158.15 Total for 7 lines
What we'd pay if we committed to a new Centrex contract for 36 months, with
a minimum of 2 lines:
$20.00 overhead for Centrex
$21.55 per line
--------
$170.85 Total for 7 lines
What we'd pay if we dump Centrex and switch to a regular trunk-hunt
system:
$22.73 per line
--------
$159.10 Total for 7 lines
So even if we kept all 7 lines, it would make sense to drop to a regular
trunk line. And the more lines we drop, the more we'll save.
The woman I talked to swore there would be no installation charges either
way. Unfortunately, the quotes she sent me do talk about installation
charges, but that's understandable, since no doubt the software that
prints out quotes is not equipped to deal with our special situation.
Still, I wish I had it in writing that it won't cost us anything to
switch.
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gelinas
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response 3 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:13 UTC 2003 |
dah, the dial-up lines are there because we really do have people who use
dial-up. I won't try to guess or explain why they use dial-up, but they do.
(FWIW, I technically use dial-up: PPP over an ISDN connection, just not to
grex.)
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dah
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response 4 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:18 UTC 2003 |
I don't think there's anyone who really does NEED to use dial-up, and besides
my plan will allow the VERY odd people who need to use dial-up to use dial-up.
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gelinas
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response 5 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:24 UTC 2003 |
It doesn't matter what you, or I, think of their needs; *they* think they need
it, so they do. As the statistics show, one line won't supply the demand.
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dah
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response 6 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:26 UTC 2003 |
No, and that's the point: We'll have less supply than demand, which will give
us more nostalgia and more money.
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aruba
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response 7 of 95:
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Sep 23 03:54 UTC 2003 |
Grex is not in business to make money. Grex is, among other things, a
charity. A large part of our charitable mission is to provide some minimal
internet access to people in the Ann Arbor area, and we need dialin lines to
do that.
Of course, that doesn't mean we're in the business of subsidizing the phone
company, either. We should adjust the number of lines we have to agree with
the demand for them.
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mary
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response 8 of 95:
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Sep 23 12:00 UTC 2003 |
Mark, when in October can we make a change or drop our Centrex
contract? I guess what I'm wondering is if the board needs
to vote on this tonight or whether we'd be having another meeting
before the target date.
My feeling on reading this through, once, is that we drop to
three lines. Do we still have a staff only dialin line?
Do we need that?
How do those *who dial in* feel about our dropping to three
available phone lines?
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scott
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response 9 of 95:
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Sep 23 12:24 UTC 2003 |
Re 5: Please don't feed the troll.
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cmcgee
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response 10 of 95:
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Sep 23 12:55 UTC 2003 |
I could live with 3 lines, but I'm pretty sure that getting busy signals would
quickly extinguish my behavior of hopping on Grex on a whim. The "hassle"
of finding a time when I could be sure of getting on would probably lead to
not trying. Rather than several times a day, I'd probably be on several times
a week.
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aruba
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response 11 of 95:
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Sep 23 13:07 UTC 2003 |
I believe she said our Centrex contract runs out on October 20th.
I'm sorry I didn't get this data up earlier. But I do think we should make
a decision on keeping or dropping Centrex at the meeting tonight.
It seems like a pretty easy decision to me: for a small number of lines, a
trunk hunt is cheaper than Centrex. We've never used the intercom features
that make Centrex valuable for certain businesses, so it really doesn't
offer us any advantages that I see.
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dpc
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response 12 of 95:
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Sep 23 13:17 UTC 2003 |
I dial up, and I think going to 3 lines would be fine.
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aruba
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response 13 of 95:
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Sep 23 13:28 UTC 2003 |
I realized there is an error in #2: we pay $19.74 per line now, not $19.81.
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gull
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response 14 of 95:
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Sep 23 13:34 UTC 2003 |
I'm not too hung up on the "three or four lines" question. I think
eventually we will no longer have dialin lines (or perhaps only one),
but I expect they'll be gradually phased out as they get less and less
use. I think that for now having dialin lines fits with Grex's mission
of being accessable to low-income people.
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janc
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response 15 of 95:
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Sep 23 13:49 UTC 2003 |
This staff member feels no need for a staff line. I haven't used it to dial
in in years. It is nice to be able to phone people in the pumpkin, and phone
out from the pumpkin, but most staff members have cell phones and you could
dial out on one of the modem lines.
Getting off centrex seems a no brainer. It gives us no advantages, costs
more, and limits our ability to reduce our lines as needed.
Cutting dial-in lines seems a no brainer too. They really aren't being used.
I think the questions that need thinking about are (1) cut down to three dial
lines or two dial-in lines? and (2) cut out the staff line?
The other thing to think about is whether we can afford to bump up our DSL
speed.
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aruba
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response 16 of 95:
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Sep 23 15:14 UTC 2003 |
I don't have numbers worked out, but my sense is that we are currently
living beyond our means. So I don't think we should consider bumping up our
DSL speed until
1) We get on the new machine, and are assured that the DSL line, not the
CPU, is the biggest bottleneck, and
2) We get some more members.
But, I'll be happy to work up some income/expense numbers for the October
meeting so we can be more analyticl about answering that question. I don't
have time to do it for tonight.
I've been wondering if we need the staff line as well. The theory was
always that if some vandal took over Grex and made it impossible to telnet
in, the staff could dial in and fix things. Is that really something that
might happen these days? $20/month seems like a lot to pay for that
insurance, if it's not really a practical solution to an attack.
I was thinking, based on Jan's numbers, that we should cut back to either 3
or 4 publicly-accessible dialin lines.
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robh
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response 17 of 95:
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Sep 23 15:38 UTC 2003 |
I'd be fine with 3 or 4 dial-up lines.
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other
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response 18 of 95:
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Sep 23 18:40 UTC 2003 |
I'm inclined to go with 4, to keep the busy time to less than a minute
per month on average, primarily because of cmcgee's reasoning. We can
always drop another later.
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gelinas
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response 19 of 95:
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Sep 23 21:16 UTC 2003 |
I'm also inclined to four lines. The jump from 0.02% to 0.34% is a big (!)
one, from thirty-three minutes to more than seven hours of busy signals.
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i
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response 20 of 95:
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Sep 24 11:07 UTC 2003 |
Does dial-in usage tend to rise in the fall & winter? (Students back,
fewer warm & sunny hours to play outside, etc.)
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aruba
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response 21 of 95:
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Sep 24 13:32 UTC 2003 |
Students all have much faster ways to connect to Grex than through dialup.
The board voted last night to drop Centrex, drop to 4 dialin lines, and drop
the staff line.
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gull
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response 22 of 95:
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Sep 24 14:09 UTC 2003 |
Just out of curiousity, how much will this save us per month?
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gull
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response 23 of 95:
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Sep 24 14:12 UTC 2003 |
Never mind, just saw the answer in the board meeting minutes item.
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aruba
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response 24 of 95:
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Sep 24 15:01 UTC 2003 |
We should be paying approximately $70/month less than we pay now.
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