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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+
>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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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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?
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.