Broadband CEOs Admit Usage Caps Are Nothing More Than A Toll On Uncompetitive Markets (techdirt.com)

Though giant ISPs such as AT&T and Comcast continue to impose caps on users with several of their data plans, a crop of local ISPs is no longer hesitating from admitting that there is no justification for these caps as the cost to provide broadband services has only dropped in the past years. From a TechDirt article (condensed): "The cost of increasing [broadband] capacity has declined much faster than the increase in data traffic," says Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic, an independent ISP based in Santa Rosa, Calif. [...] Frontier Communications CEO Dan McCarthy adds, "There may be a time when usage-based pricing is the right solution for the market, but I really don't see that as a path the market is taking at this point in time." Suddenlink CEO Jerry Kent said, "I think one of the things people don't realize [relates to] the question of capital intensity and having to keep spending to keep up with capacity. Those days are basically over, and you are seeing significant free cash flow generated from the cable operators as our capital expenditures continue to come down."

Comments

Re:Rent Seeking

[tendrousbeastie]

For comparison, the UK has a system whereby the infrastructure is owned by a single company - in our case Openreach, which is a division of British Telecom (who used to be the nationalised public telecoms company, but are a private company for a couple of decades now). Openreach are highly regulated and must offer access to the infrastructure to any company that wants it at regulated prices.

Then, any old private company can offer internet access on this public infrastructure without having to provide their own cables, They are free to do so if they want - I think Sky and Virgin do their own infrastructure in part.

This seems to allow access enough to allow lots of competition at both a national and local level - I get my internet from a local company who operate in my city only (it's a lot more expensive, but they have better service and no caps and allow me to run servers on my DSL line) and it goes down exactly the same cables as if I bought it from Sky or BT.

Re:Free Market

[Gravis Zero]

Except crony capitalism is rampant, and so it is not a truly free market.

that's irrelevant because the concept of a "free market" requires perfect information which is impossible.