Telephone companies are also actively promoting second telephone lines, which are often purchased for use with modems, the putative source of congestion. PacBell, one of the firms complaining the most about Internet users, is now giving away 5 months of free Internet usage to persons who purchase a 2nd phone line. This is a portion of our testimony on this topic in a Maryland PSC proceeding, followed by a note by Roger Bohn that was posted to com-priv on the same topic. There is no evidence that ISDN is causing any network congestion. Nor is there much evidence that personal computers are causing network congestion.
Telephone networks are fixed cost plants.
The cost of the network is determined by the build-out at any given time, regardless of usage. The residential network is built according to certain assumptions regarding usage. People who use the Internet as dial-in users don't dial in all at once. They just don't. People have complicated lives.