Verizon CTO Argues For Metered Pricing

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Verizon CTO Argues For Metered Pricing

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 29, 2009 @05:04PM 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."

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Horrible idea... by ImYourVirus · 2009-09-29 17:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sounds like a good way to kill, just about everything one would use for entertainment on the web, streaming videos, games, etc etc

I know this has been talked about before by other providers, but it's still a bad idea for the end user. Just yet another way for them to offer less and make more money, typical corporate greed mongering, nothing more.

--
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
1. Re:Horrible idea... by kestasjk · 2009-09-29 18:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Actually I disagree. I think it's crazy that I pay per KWh of electical power I use, I pay per minute of phone time I spent, I pay per BTU (or is it volume?) of natural gas I use, I pay per liter of petrol I use, etc, etc...
  
  But with bandwidth I pay for a certain number of GB/month, and I get throttled if I go above that. What if I want to use a little more, or a little less? There's this bizarre situation with bandwidth where, to make the most out of what I pay for, I have to always keep tabs on how long before my quota resets, and how much I've downloaded.
  I have to try and guess in advance what I'll use, and so inevitably either end up paying for more than I need or get less than I want.
  
  Imagine if you had a certain distance you could travel in your car per month, or you had a certain amount of power/water/gas/phone time you could use, and you lost out if you didn't use exactly your allocated amount; it'd be madness.
  
  I think the reason providers aren't rushing to implement this is because they know they'd make less money; because people would stop buying more than they need. Either that or because they think (perhaps rightly so) that the average consumer wouldn't understand the concept of paying per unit of data (why iPod storage is advertised in terms of the dubious "song" or "movie"), but I think that'll change as time goes on.
  
  Personally I hope metered pricing comes as soon as possible.
  
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  // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
2. Re:Horrible idea... by kestasjk · 2009-09-29 18:18 · 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.
  
  --
  // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
3. Re:Horrible idea... by tagno25 · 2009-09-29 18:29 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Actually I disagree. I think it's crazy that I pay per KWh of electical power I use, I pay per minute of phone time I spent, I pay per BTU (or is it volume?) of natural gas I use, I pay per liter of petrol I use, etc, etc...
  You are actually consuming those services, where as data is not really consumed, it is not gone/used up when you are done, there is still a virtually unlimited amount (as long at there is electricity there can be data).
4. Re:Horrible idea... by snookums · 2009-09-29 18:43 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Please stop with the "$/byte" calculations for SMS. It's not a data channel, it's a messaging service. It costs 55c or whatever to send a letter in the post. If you write a short letter to your grandma it costs a silly amount per byte too.
  If it irks you, get a phone with Internet and send email.
  
  --
  Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
5. Re:Horrible idea... by snookums · 2009-09-29 18:46 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You are actually consuming those services, where as data is not really consumed, it is not gone/used up when you are done, there is still a virtually unlimited amount (as long at there is electricity there can be data).
  No. The capacity of the network at any given time is finite. You are using a fraction of that available bandwith for some period of time.
  Bandwidth x Time = Bytes Transferred.
  
  --
  Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
6. Re:Horrible idea... by beelsebob · 2009-09-29 20:41 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It sounds perfect actually. Gone are the days of broadband companies complaining that you're breaking their fair use policy. Gone are the days of broadband companies complaining about the BBC iPlayer. Gone are the days of broadband companies complaining about torrenting (legally ofc).
  We pay for exactly what we get: bandwidth.
  They stop complaining when we use it.
  It's absolutely, 100% perfect!
7. Re:Horrible idea... by beelsebob · 2009-09-29 21:59 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Yes, that was a well reasoned argument against what I said. Wait no, the other thing, it was a rant with no relevance to what I said at all.
Pay Per Byte by kikusz · 2009-09-29 17:40 · Score: 2, Informative

That's why ISPs offer different plans... Slower with limits.... high-speed with limits and unlimited with basically double-price of slower and they still wanna make more... In the end they wanna turn everyone into cash-cows... Whats the point of having websites like youtube and what not if one can't even use it afraid of having to pay more?
Re:What's the problem? by iCantSpell · 2009-09-29 19:17 · 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.
Re:Nothing wrong with metered usage, but... by macraig · 2009-09-29 19:48 · Score: 2, Funny

How about wiring the steering wheel to be electrically conductive, and slowly increasing the voltage with speed?
iPod storage ads by anomaly · 2009-09-30 01:35 · Score: 2, Informative

iPod storage is advertised in terms of "song" and "movie" because normals don't know (or care) about bytes!
Apple sold their "inferior" device to zillions of people who don't care about how it's technically "less good" than other options, because they value things other than specifications - ease of use, style, etc. Those are valid selection criteria, even if *you* don't value them, obviously the market *does.*
Consumers on the whole will never understand nor care about "data". They will care about music and movies and other entertainment.
Remember "amuse" means
"a" - not
"muse" - think
We love our amusement.

--
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?