Slashdot Mirror
A Layman's Guide To Bandwidth Pricing
narramissic links to IT World's A Layman's Guide to Bandwidth Pricing, writing "Time Warner Cable has, for now, abandoned the tiered pricing trials that raised the ire of Congressman Eric Massa, among others. And, as some nice data points in a New York Times article reveal, it's good for us that they did. For instance, Comcast says it costs them $6.85 per home to double the internet capacity of a neighborhood. But the bit of the Times article that we should commit to memory is this: 'If all Time Warner customers decided one day not to check their e-mail or download a single movie, the company's costs would be no different than on a day when every customer was glued to the screen watching one YouTube video after another.'"
I prefer the government installs the fiber and leases it to companies that provide billing, maintenance, and tech support services. Let competition in those areas bring prices down. Internet access is a public good and greases the wheels of the commerce. It's not something to be taxed and exploited by large monopolistic corporations.
While it is true that most costs are fixed and therefore the costs are no different if every customers takes an Internet break one day, one has to plan to for peak capacity ... or something like a 95% threshold. No different than other utilities such as electricity, plumbing, etc.
Exactly. This is what's so brain-dead about the argument that bandwidth is free - it's only free once you've built out infrastructure to handle capacity, but something has to pay for that. This is common, as you point out, to any industry in which one-time costs dominate per-unit costs.
I compare it to the pharmaceutical industry - pills cost, say, $0.05 to make. Why do they cost a great deal more on the market? Because you have to price in the cost of research and development.
I think the fairest thing is to do what many cell phone plans do; namely, metered or capped usage during peak hours, and free access off-peak. If a user is savvy enough to schedule iso downloads or watch video off-peak, it shouldn't cost him much since that traffic truly is nearly free.
We might be disagreeing on semantics, but at least for my water bill, we have tiered pricing as I live in the Western US.
... but I think somewhat similar to tier'ed ala-carte pricing that the bandwidth providers would like to do ... so seems like a reasonable analogy (?)
I.e. if I use 10,000 gallons of water (ballpark numbers), I get charged a base rate per thousand gallons. However, for each thousand gallons above that, I'm charged 2x that base rate. And then for each thousand gallons above 50,000 gallons, I'm charged 5x the base rate.
And yes, this is a "monthly load" rather than an instantaneous load
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Read further into the article. The companies tell their shareholders that they're paying the same amount for the newest, fastest equipment that provides 50megabit connections as they did for the equipment for 6 megabit, but they're charging a couple times more for it than they've charged for their highest internet in the last 5 years. Their profit margins are solid but the amount they invest in the networks is falling. This at a time when youtube is drawing more and more bandwidth and sites like Hulu are becoming more popular. It's a pretty solid case of the ISPs milking their monopolies for all they're worth.
Not really. Water is a fixed commodity. Though there is a lot of it, there is not an infinite supply, and it is therefore subtractive. If you use 10,000 gallons of water, it inherently prevents anyone else from using that 10,000 gallons of water, and it is irrelevant when you use them.
In the case of computers, it is entirely possible to use an amount of data in excess of what everyone else is using, and yet still not deprive anyone of their bandwidth, by using it when no one else is using it.
They need to stop dicking around and use the sort of pricing structure that has worked excellently in the cellphone industry, where you pay by the minute during peak times (whenever that may be) and you do not pay a dime during non-peak times. I'd be happy to pay by the gigabyte during peak hours, and have an unlimited reserve otherwise.
That's where monopoly busting laws come in. That's what they were designed for...To keep capitalism from eating itself.
Anyway, most people can't switch providers right now, since they're locked in with local monopolies, or they don't want to buy new equipment to switch between DSL and Cable...Give them more than one option where they don't have to switch their hardware, and that number will go WAY up.
Personally I am a proud member of the 4%. I am the anti-customer: I switch every 3 months without fail. When the other company calls and offers me a sweet introductory deal I take it, and then 3 months later, I take the next one.
It's to the point where I leave all the hardware plugged in, and just switch "live" interfaces on my firewall...AT&T fucks with me, goodbye eth1, hello eth2. Cox fucks with me, goodbye eth2, hello eth1. What's wrong with that picture? I'm like a woman with two abusive husbands! I hate this shit!
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.