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Verizon CTO Argues For Metered Pricing

Posted by kdawson on from the what-happened-to-all-that-fiber dept.

CNet is reporting on a press conference and speech given by Verizon's CTO, Dick Lynch, at the FTTH Conference & Expo in Houston, in which he advocated for metered broadband pricing. "Lynch said during that press conference according to reports that in the future broadband service will likely be sold in packages based on how much bandwidth a person consumes. This metered approach is similar to how the wireless industry has operated. ... 'We're going to have to consider pricing structures that allow us to sell packages of bytes, and at the end of the day the concept of a flat-rate infinitely expandable service is unachievable,' GigaOm quoted him as saying. ... Lynch didn't say that Verizon had metered broadband plans in the works today. And he was quick to point out that the company is not shifting its pricing, But he did say that he hoped the that the Federal Communication Commission's plans to make Net neutrality principles formal regulation would not hurt broadband providers' ability to offer such premium bandwidth offerings, Telephony Online reported."

3 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Horrible idea... by kestasjk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Also I think doing things this way will make consumers more aware of how insane the cell network prices are. "What, I'm paying 0.25c/text? But a text is a couple hundred bytes and I pay a millionth of a cent for that at home." Wherever an ISP also runs a cell network they won't like this prospect.

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  2. Re:What's the problem? by iCantSpell · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's probably the reason. You also have to factor that Japan is 90% middle class, 70% jungle, and mountains with 0% deforestation. So technically the whole country isn't really wired for the net, and everyone can afford it in the places that are wired.

  3. Re:Horrible idea... by mrbill1234 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You can't compare bandwidth which is 100% recycled electrons to electricity or gas which is a finite resource subject to the pricing of the open market.

    Electricity doesn't have anything remotely like Moore's Law - whereas bandwidth availability will most probably continue to expand in line with moore's law.

    The statement by the Verizon CTO is just him thinking of ways to squeeze more money out of his customers.