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

Model cycling

[nycsubway]

Hopefully the home ISP market won't follow the cyclic model of the cell phone industry. With cell phone data, first you paid by the kB, then they introduced unlimited data plans, then they capped the limits and you paid by the GB, now they're going back to unlimited data plans. I'd prefer the home ISPs to not do that. They've always been unlimited (within reason) so I'd wouldn't like to see some small company changing the model for the industry.

Re:Attacks on bandwidth caps are shortsighted

[PhxBlue]

Highly disruptive. Sure. Whatever.

Given my bandwidth usage, I'd have to pay about $1,000 a month to get what I have now for about $70. I'm not seeing what's "highly disruptive" about that.

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:Not Cheaper

[cluedweasel]

And one of my remote workers gets through 4Gb to 5Gb per month and she has the privilege of paying $56.99 per month for that. Just because this pricing doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it's a bad deal for everyone.

Re:Not Cheaper

[localman57]

You'd want to be careful about auto-updates of software, though. Adding a new (to you) computer with a pre -SP3 fresh reinstall of winodws XP (something resonable to happen for people in this market) would eat up stubstantial bandwidth as it downloaded updates.

Re:Attacks on bandwidth caps are shortsighted

[Sez Zero]

I'm not seeing what's "highly disruptive" about that.

Well, it would be highly disruptive to your wallet.

Re:Attacks on bandwidth caps are shortsighted

[alen]

yeah, but lots of people like my inlaws who don't use too much will jump on this if it costs them $20 or $30 a month

if i use less than 1GB per month on my iphone i'm sure there are lots of people who use the same on their home internet

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.

Opt-In Cap Limits

[MatrixCubed]

If they're implementing cap-excess fees, they should also enable the user to hard-limit his internet access when the cap is reached, with a manual bypass when the user wishes to "accept the charges".

My ISP (Rogers, up here in Canada) offers soft-cap notifications in your browser when the cap reaches 75% and 100%, but these notifications would never be seen if I, for example, were to Netflix my Gbs into oblivion.

Re:Not Cheaper

[localman57]

Paying $5 for 1 GB of usage is a good deal, idiot.

Paying $50 for 1 GB of usage (which is what some people are doing now) is a bad deal. It's like paying to take your anorexic girlfriend to the world's most expensive all you can eat seafood buffet.

Re:Attacks on bandwidth caps are shortsighted

[SJHillman]

Holy shit, I didn't realize we had The Guy Who Is Representative Of Everyone's Bandwidth Usage on Slashdot.

(If you didn't get the sarcasm, what I mean to say is "Maybe this product is targeted at certain demographic/market of which you are not a member")

My maternal grandmother uses a few dozen MB a month, she does almost nothing beyond email a couple times a week, look up the odd recipe and a little online banking. My paternal grandfather does even less with his Net connection. Both are on fixed income.

Re:Attacks on bandwidth caps are shortsighted

[dyingtolive]

I think he ran out of bandwidth.