> Jan Bolluyt wrote: > > > > When do "students" stop their "studenthood". At what point do we deny > > subsidized access. College? Junior College? Early graduates? Adult > > education? GED students? "life-long" learners? > > > > Jan > > Excellent point. If we subsidize educational instutions, does this mean > only those within the bricks and mortar buildings, or does it apply to > students doing homework, or home schooling, or teachers from home? An Broaden the perspective a bit. The economic issue isn't edu vs everything else, but rather non-commercial use vs commercial use (an issue that the Internet as a whole thrashed about 4 years ago). Consider 'subidized service' for a wider audience and crank this economy: - include the fire department, police department, hospitals, and ambulance folks as part of the non-commercial base. Note that they are funded out of the same tax base so the economies of scale ought to be attractive. - consider the role of schools when a disaster strikes. Consider what the role of the schools might be if the Northridge quake had struck at 10AM instead of 0430. There are several one-time costs (like a network operations infrastructure) that you're willy-nilly stuck with regardless of the size of the network. So making the network bigger lets you pro-rate those costs over a wider base. Rex Buddenberg