An interesting aspect of AC-1 is that it seems to be the most purely "commercial" of cable systems, being fully financed by investors in Global Crossing whose main objective is to make successful investments, with no apparent interest in themselves operating as telecoms carriers or ISPs. The pricing is competitive, and "anyone" can buy capacity, with the minimum unit that can be acquired being an STM-1 (155 Mbps) circuit. Purchase of the first such unit costs about 8 M$ and annual maintenance and operation costs capped at a maximum of 250 K$, so the five year amortised cost of an STM-1 circuit is under 2 M$ per year, corresponding to some 25 K$ per year for a 2 Mbps circuit. This is about a factor 2.5 below the TAT-12/13 pricing for consortium members.