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FCC Approving Pay-As-You-Go Internet Plans
An anonymous reader writes "As details emerge about the Federal Communications Commission's controversial proposal for regulating Internet providers, a provision that would allow companies to bill customers for how much they surf the Web is drawing special scrutiny. Analysts say pay-as-you-go Internet access could put the brakes on the burgeoning online video industry, handing a victory to cable and satellite TV providers. Public interest groups say that trend will lead to a widening gap in Internet use in which the wealthiest would have the greatest access."
Whenever you have to ask where something is in the Constitution, the answer is "Interstate Commerce". Even when it shouldn't be or isn't. Especially when it shouldn't be or isn't.
TFA = about 20k
Web 2.0 crap plus ads= 1.6 megs
or some such
Lynx Lives Again!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
It's funny how cable companies all want us to pay as we go for internet access, yet still insist on pushing bundlings of hundreds of TV channels on us if we want to use cable TV.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
[The Congress shall have the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, among the several States, and with the Indian tribes
Article I, Section 8.
The interstate commerce clause is frequently misused - but telecom and the Internet seems to clearly be interstate commerce.
...if the telecoms also give me pay-as-i-go cable TV plans. Why haven't they caught up with customer demand? Just let me pick which channels I want to watch and pay less for only those channels instead paying a premium for a bunch of channels I wont watch. The options they give are baffling. Pay very little for local channels, or pay a fuckload for 200+
They will also want to charge content creators on the same bandwidth so they can profit more on the same bandwidth, but not actually invest into upgrading their infrastructure to handle the traffic and thus negating the need to have tiered or metered plans.
Captialism, ho.
Isn't not allowing them to bill via pay-as-you-go regulation as well? I am not a free-market idealist, I understand that it is not a perfect laissez faire system, but if ISPs started switching to this model, what is to stop an ISP from just doing things as SOP (flat-rate) and making hand over fist when all the streamers, gamers, downloaders jump ship of the ISPs bilking them from the new model?
Unless they all collude and the FTC (with the actual teeth) doesn't step in, or if it is decided that it isn't colluding by the govt. if they all go to this model, well, either way its pretty gay. I think the fact of the matter is big-business (telcos,media) has the politicians too in-debted via contributions for any argument to matter. It will just be a continual decline in the quality of service we as consumers receive, as the rest of the world surpasses us here in the US. Their might be another veil on it, but we can never divorce the pig as long as corporations can donate money to politicos like they currently do.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Exactly,the consumers want pay as you go internet. How many discussions on slashdot have we had against download caps/restrictions where the only logical conclusion is pay as you go internet. You can't have unlimited throughput, no restrictions, and a low price! It doesn't work, because the peak bandwidth does cost money. The ISP industry needs to either put restrictions on how much you can use per package, or they need pay as you go. We the consumers have pushed them there because of how much we consume, and I for one welcome pay as you go.
>Analysts say pay-as-you-go Internet access could put the brakes on the burgeoning online video industry,
No, it won't. Like advanced cellphone systems earlier this century the industry will simply move to where it is viable. America will limp on with inferior general service then deny that the service is inferior and proclaim it a world besting triumph of technology.
You'll take metered internet (or not internet at all) when the providers serving your area decide that's the only thing they want to offer.
I think it's important to note what's been pointed out many times here on slashdot.
In many, many areas there isn't another ISP to jump ship to - there is only one, or dialup.
That's not much of a choice in my book.
Tle old International Packet Switch Stream used pay-as-you-use and it was in a hell of a lot more countries than the Internet, with far more secure services. It died.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm looking at it and it says "to regulate commerce", not "to regulate trade wars". If one of the reasons was to prevent trade wars, then it succeeds, sometimes. If another was to ensure the equitable distribution of federally-funded trade protections and infrastructure improvements, then it succeeds, sometimes.
what is to stop an ISP from just doing things as SOP (flat-rate) and making hand over fist when all the streamers, gamers, downloaders jump ship of the ISPs bilking them from the new model?
Nothing, except that most of those people won't actually be able to jump ship, since, if they're lucky, they'll be choosing between two providers who both have pay-as-you-go plans. Your idea assumes people can easily switch to a new provider, which when it comes to high speed internet in the U.S. isn't generally the case.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I've never much minded internet advertisements as long as they weren't popups, popovers, or popunders. But if I have to start paying for every bit delivered to me, my hosts file is gonna get big fast, adblock and javascript blocking will become required addons for all my web browsers. Every business that advertises on the web should be screaming bloody murder at internet providers to not implement this. It will decimate the internet revenue model for many companies.
Here ya go, net-neutrality proponents: a per-byte charge. Did you really expect otherwise?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
There's two reasons for consumption based-billing:
1. Make Netflix a lot less inexpensive in order to keep the profit line strong on their own video offerings.
2. Raise prices. Consumption based billing won't be less expensive for people who are light users because broadband service will be $50 for the privilege of having the coax terminate at the house, and *then* you pay what the meter says. And it won't be cheap; I would not rule out several dollars per gigabyte. By doing so, the ISP has a nice fat recurring revenue stream for doing absolutely nothing, and a service pricing structure that encourages you not to use the service.
I don't have a problem with consumption based billing. I have a problem to the GOTHCA! capitalism of having Wall Street and its corporate minions finding yet another way to fleece the public.
As long as the per-byte rate is in line with current costs, I don't see the problem with it. Moving bits costs money, and moving more bits costs more money. I've always thought broadband providers should behave more like public utilities given their government endorsed monopoly of the infrastructure.
If we paid by the byte, it would eliminate the need for arbitrary data caps. If I want to pull down a terabyte in a week, I can. I just pay more than my neighbor who only downloaded a few GB in that same week. That seems fair, right?
The problem though, as it always is with telcos, is that the pricing will NOT be fair. The cable companies in particular are trying desperately to make a grab for the lost revenue in their PPV and other cable TV cash cows as people opt for cheaper alternatives like Netflix.
I'm looking at it and it says "to regulate commerce", not "to regulate trade wars".
Trade wars are about commerce.
Free Martian Whores!
Teir 1's do not pay anything (but they have to actively manage there business to get the traffic fairly even) this is what makes a tier 1 a tier 1. In the medium market I can get a 1gb connect with a 1gb floor for $1k a month 10gb for 5k and I do not deal with anything over 10gb at a single location (few people do). So while all the cable companies (none of them are tier 1 networks in the US to my knowledge) might pay most of the DSL company's do not since they are mostly Tier 1 networks. Now people generally buy on 95th percentile billing that is you throw up the top 5% of the samples (5 minute samples generally) and are billed on that rate with a minimum bill of so many mbs. There are no real per month costs past that for bandwidth, so my 16mbs comcast line would cost them less than 8 bucks a month to buy the bandwidth for if I maxed it out all month. Oddly I expect they will play the normal consumer billing of per megabyte delivered and probably more for a megabyte than I could buy it for in bulk.
No sir I dont like it.
ISPs don't pay per volume. The most common metric is a base price depending on the maximum throughput plus a variable price based on the 95th bandwidth percentile.
A pretty accurate summary of buying transit. On the other hand, peering is a fixed monthly fee (usually quite low) to trade local traffic with your immediate physical neighbors almost always at zero per byte cost.
And of course ALL the other expenses of an ISP are constant per month. Electric, salaries, rent, equipment loan interest, private line interconnects, property taxes, etc ...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I agree with one provision. If I pay for say 30gbs of bandwidth and 15gb of upstream, I don't want the provider to say a thing about what the content is. I Either ala carte it with no analysis of what it is or flat rate it and monitor but not both.
The government's meddling in business is what has kept this from occurring ten years ago, champ. Note that this is the FCC considering a RULE CHANGE. If the FCC had never been around to create such a rule, we would have already seen this happen.
Having said that, I'm very, very, very cautiously optimistic that this will only have a short-term effect. Streaming HD (in my case, via Netflix) has gone from a "that would be cool" to something I do almost every day within three years, and despite my /. account, I'm not a bleeding edge type. The difference between "normal internet user" and "person who streams a shitload of video" is blurring and is probably going to disappear within the next 18 months. And people just aren't going to pay $200/month for internet unless there's a massive speed increase, and even then, probably not.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
This mis-interpretation is pretty much exactly how that clause has made the Constitution completely meaningless.
It was a harmless little addendum that pretty much everyone considered perfectly safe. The point was to keep trade "regular" among the States. So that, for example, Virginia isn't allowed to attach extra tariffs to goods passing through from New York.
Now everyone thinks it means "Congress can do anything it wants.
I do so love a challenge. Here's some examples of the theory:
And here's some examples of the practice with CISCO routers:
Other systems:
Now, tell me again that only a Marxist would believe that it's possible to have pipe-based fair-service on the Internet.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No, but your paying for it does. Unless you only use an ISP based in your state to access DNS servers in your state to access websites hosted in your state. And even then, it's not likely (my first jump via tracert goes to Illinois, and I live in Wisconsin).
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
Electricity and gas are unlike bandwidth. They are limited in a way bandwidth isn't. If you use a unit of gas, you have to generate more. On the other hand, if you use a unit of bandwidth there's another unit waiting for you. Conversely, if you don't use a unit of gas you can save it for later. If you don't use a unit of bandwidth it's gone forever, and it costs the same to maintain the network whether you use it or not.
Pricing structure should encourage people to conserve gas and electricity. Networks (computer and phone) have to be maximally utilized to provide the lowest cost per packet. Pricing per megabyte discourages maximal utilization which leads to waste.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. It isn't the ISPs that are pushing for it, even though they will benefit...
It's the MIAA and RIAA that are pushing for it. They're banking on making it expensive to pirate media in order to diminish how often it happens!
I think this would encourage piracy. If a person has to pay as they go, wouldn't it be cheaper to download a single compressed file, maybe even of lower quality, instead of streaming with commercials & all the other crap?
Why should people in low population density areas be able to expect the same quality of service as those who live in high density areas without fronting up the additional costs caused by where they choose to live?
Why are they trying to charge base on how much total data I transfer? It doesn't save them money if the pipes are 'empty'. The expense should be based on how fast I want my bits.
I remember the days when I'd have to let a 1 min video buffer for 30s before I could watch it. Why not do that for super cheap, then let people pay more for 5Mbs, and even more for 50Mbps?
What compelling argument is there that it matters at all how much I am able to download in one month at 1Mbps or even 56k? I understand that not every person in the region can max out a 20Mbps line at the same time, but surely at lower speed that all changes....
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
If anything, this will be an incentive for ISPs to start trying to build out their networks and actually make an effort to deliver as many bytes as possible, since suddenly extra network capacity becomes extra earning potential, rather than something they just have to maintain in order to keep people from leaving.
The actual per-byte price will have to be competitive if they don't want to lose all their customers - but imagine if Comcast's engineers started looking at things like Netflix as a sales opportunity rather than a nuisance to their infrastructure!
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
The problem is what will happen in monopoly broadband markets. If there is no competition, they can still jack up the per MB rates so they get the same amount of revenue, or even higher until the network congestion is reduced because it costs so much to use. There is no infrastructure improvement incentive there, and no market forces to lower the price.
Maybe the FCC should limit the use of per-MB pricing to areas where there is actual competition and to no-cancellation-fee service. This would include most mobile services but exclude fixed installations in places where per-MB pricing would do more harm than good. It might even give an incentive for companies and governments to revoke some monopolies.
More than likely it went down something like this:
Founding Father A: No way man, commerce should be the States' business!
Founding Father B: I totally agree dude, but what if the states don't agree? What if they start trade wars and shit? That's bad news man, and we have no way to fix it! The Congress needs to be able put a stop to that man!
Founding Father A: Oh dude, you're right! I didn't think about that! How we make Congress the arbitrators of trade disputes?
Founding Father B: Alright dude, that sounds perfect!
Founding Father C: But what if something happens that we didn't think of though? Like, what if a State gets sneaky? Or what if a company gets so big it actually operates in more than one state? One state could get nasty and try to take all the business, and there isn't anything the other states can do!
Founding Fathers A & B: Oh shit, you're right man.
Founding Father A: Ok, so how's this? We already decided Congress should regulate international commerce right? Well, why shouldn't they regulate interstate commerce too?
Founding Fathers B & C: Brilliant! Next!
I'm certain that's how they talked back then too, I swear it.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Lets remember they have there own cable plant to maintain (really no incremental cost from the cable or phone plants they all ready had) and piles of tech support for the clueless idiots that think there ISP is responsible for fixing there computer.
No sir I dont like it.
In order to provide you with better service, we are moving you from the Unlimited(tm)* plan over to our metered service. Our metered service will charge a dollar per gigabyte. A gigabyte can hold ten full length movies** or six hundred thousand songs***. We feel that this is fair pricing and if you want to use any more bandwidth you're free to go to dialup or start your own service provider.
*Unlimited means 250GB/month
** In 100x100 resolution @5fps
*** In MIDI format
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?