> I think a T1 went from 1800 a month in 1996, to around 600 a month in 1999. It was a long time ago, so my memory is hazy.
It varied a lot by region. At the mom and pop ISP I worked at, we went from paying around $1,500/month for a T1 to $500 to, eventually around $100/month for the T1 loop to the customer plus a few grand a month for an OC12 SONET ring that we used to backhaul the T1 (and other circuits) back to our datacenter.
But, all of it was driven by the Telecommunications Act requirement for ILECs to sell unbundled network facilities - all of the CLECs we purchased from were using the local ILEC for the physical part of the last mile for most (> 75%) of the circuits they sold us.
One interesting thing that happened was that for a while in the late 90’s, when dialup was still a thing, we could buy a voice T1 PRI for substantially less than a data T1 ($250 for the PRI vs $500 for the T1.) The CLEC’s theory was our dialup customers almost all had service from the local ILEC, and the CLEC would be paid “reciprocal compensation” fees by the ILEC for the CLEC accepting calls from them.
In my market, when the telecommunications act reform act was gutted, the ILEC just kept on selling wholesale/unbundled services to us. I think they had figured out at that point that it was a very profitable line of business if they approached it the right way.
It varied a lot by region. At the mom and pop ISP I worked at, we went from paying around $1,500/month for a T1 to $500 to, eventually around $100/month for the T1 loop to the customer plus a few grand a month for an OC12 SONET ring that we used to backhaul the T1 (and other circuits) back to our datacenter.
But, all of it was driven by the Telecommunications Act requirement for ILECs to sell unbundled network facilities - all of the CLECs we purchased from were using the local ILEC for the physical part of the last mile for most (> 75%) of the circuits they sold us.
One interesting thing that happened was that for a while in the late 90’s, when dialup was still a thing, we could buy a voice T1 PRI for substantially less than a data T1 ($250 for the PRI vs $500 for the T1.) The CLEC’s theory was our dialup customers almost all had service from the local ILEC, and the CLEC would be paid “reciprocal compensation” fees by the ILEC for the CLEC accepting calls from them.
In my market, when the telecommunications act reform act was gutted, the ILEC just kept on selling wholesale/unbundled services to us. I think they had figured out at that point that it was a very profitable line of business if they approached it the right way.