Re: Industry practice for BGP costs - one time or fixed/monthly?

[Matthew Palmer <mpalmer () hezmatt org>]

On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 09:39:16PM -0400, Luke S. Crawford wrote:
> On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 10:06:03AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > We pay what our providers think they can get away with.  Like most pricing
> > decisions, they're not based on any "technical logic", they're based on what
> > the market will bear.  Feel free to turn the process around -- decide what
> > the service is worth to you, tell the provider of the service that price,
> > and let them decide if they want to provide it to you at that price.  Don't
> > be too surprised if you get monkeys in exchange for your peanuts, though.
>
> Are you suggesting that you get worse service after you negotiate a better
> deal with a particular provider?

To a certain extent, yes.  It has been my experience (from both the service
provider and the customer point-of-view) that customers who aren't worth as
much to a supplier don't get as much "love", because the cost of losing
their business to a competitor is much less (or, in some cases, would be a
net win).

However, my main point was that if you are mainly concerned about price,
rather than quality of service (or, more precisely, the value-for-money
ratio between the two), you are likely to end up with a substandard service. 
I will concede, however, that I didn't make that point particularly clear,
for which I apologise.

- Matt


-- 
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