How large would congestion prices be?
Consider the average cost of the NSFNET backbone in 1993: about $10^6 per month, for about 60,000 * 10^6 packets per month. This implies a cost per packet (around 200 bytes) of about 1/600 cents. If there are 20 million users of the NSFNET backbone (10 per host computer), then full cost recovery of the NSFNET subsidy would imply an average monthly bill of about $0.08 per person. If we accept the estimate that the total cost of the U.S. portion of the Internet is about 10 times the NSFNET subsidy, we come up with 50 cents per person per month for full cost recovery. The revenue from congestion fees would presumably be significantly less than this amount. The average cost of the Internet is so small today because the technology is so efficient: the packet-switching technology allows for very cost-effective use of existing lines and switches. If everyone only sent ASCII email, there would probably never be congestion problems on the Internet. However, new applications are creating huge de
Consider the average cost of the current NSFNET: about $106 per month, for about 42,000 x 10^6 packets per month. This implies a cost per packet (around 200 bytes) of about 1/420 cents. If there are 20 million users of the NSFNET backbone (10 per host computer), then full cost recovery of the NSFNET subsidy would imply an average monthly bill of about $0.05 per person. If we accept the estimate that the total cost of the U.S. portion of the Internet is about 10 times the NSFNET subsidy, we come up with 50 cents per person per month for full cost recovery. The revenue from congestion fees would presumably be significantly less than this amount.12 The average cost of the Internet is so small today because the tech nology is so efficient: the packet-switching technology allows for very cost-effective use of existing lines and switches. If everyone only sent ASCII email, there would probably never be congestion problems on the Internet. However, new applications are creating huge demands f
