ISP Trying Free (But Limited) Home Broadband Plan

adeelarshad82 writes "Earlier today FreedomPop, a telecom company headquartered in Los Angeles, announced its plans to launch a very low cost home broadband plan for extremely low-intensity users, with 1GB monthly for free. Clearly this is much lower than an average U.S. home broadband usage, which is between 24 and 28 gigs per month. The 1GB of free Internet is basically a teaser; the company aims to disrupt the cable and DSL business with its 10GB for $10 plan which is extendable by paying $5 for each additional GB beyond 10."

Comments

Could Work for Some

[cluedweasel]

Interesting to see the average usage at 24Gb to 28Gb. When our local cable company was trying to bring in a 30Gb monthly cap, their argument was that 95% of their users went through 2Gb a month or less, effectively subsidizing heavier users. Total bollocks argument of course, but that's another story. The age demographic tends to skew high here and a lot of people only use their Internet connection for email. even here at work, people will reach for the Yellow Pages book before using Google. Those people would be a good target for this sort of service.

Re:Could Work for Some

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

Interesting to see the average usage at 24Gb to 28Gb. When our local cable company was trying to bring in a 30Gb monthly cap, their argument was that 95% of their users went through 2Gb a month or less, effectively subsidizing heavier users. Total bollocks argument of course, but that's another story.

The summary is a little misleading. The 24-28 gb is the average use, but the mean is a lot lower. Here's the full quote:

"While average [U.S. home broadband usage] is 24-28 gigs per month, the average is skewed heavily by the whales. The median is actually 5.8 gigs, which is basically your non-streaming user," Stokols said.

So half of all users are using 5.8 gb or less. Still makes the 2 gb limit ridiculously low, but the 24-28 gb average is skewed by some heavy users.

Re:Attacks on bandwidth caps are shortsighted

[dmatos]

RTFA - median internet usage numbers in the US are 5.8GB/mo. This plan is cheaper for those users than _any_ other plan out there right now.

If they can steal 50% of all internet customers from other service providers, to the benefit of those customers, it will be disruptive.