I agree whole-heartedly. If they want to provide me with service restricted to "256Kbps and 30 GB/day between the hours of 7 am and 7pm, etc..." then that is what they should advertise and sell. When they sell a service without listing restrictions, that is what I expect and what I should get. It should not matter who or how many use that bandwidth, or from where that bandwidth is used.
On the flip side of this coin, how about the people who DON'T use the "maximum acceptable" bandwidth? I don't think any of the providers are sending them emails saying "Gee, you're saving bandwidth and we really appreciate you're not raising our costs." In my opinion, if you're going to complain when somebody uses everything you provide, you ought to be grateful to those who don't take advantage.
My opinion of the way the companies should approach the "problem" of wireless-accessible broadband? Sell the service on a throughput measurement and throttle mean download speeds to the advertised rate. If they don't want to advertise what they REALLY want to sell, stop complaining when people use everything they can. Imagine going to an "All You Can Eat" buffet and being told you can't eat anymore because they didn't expect you to eat as much as 10 people. Hey, you promote unlimited usage - that's what I expect.
I, however, am fairly certain they will NOT change their charging policy. Why not? Probably most importantly flat-rate pricing provides the company with the cheapest billing system possible. Metered service can be implemented, but only at additional cost for everybody, and this is without considering dispute resolution ("Prove that I used 32 GB last month...") From a business perspective, it is probably just as profit-effective to raise prices slightly to compensate for the additional bandwidth required.
As for fairness - when I signed up for broadband, I was not supplied concrete numbers regarding bandwidth availability, up-time, etc. But everybody who signs the $50/month dotted line expects just two things:
(1) Reasonable availability of a relatively high-speed connection
and
(2) They will pay $50/month until the price changes.
The family that uses their broadband for email and light surfing gets what they expected. The tech nut running a server for friends get what he expected. How much more fair to the customer can it get?
As for the company, fairness is dictated by their throttling capability. When they sign up a customer for 512Kbps bandwidth, they should assume the customer will use that bandwidth. They all throttle upload bandwidth (mainly to discourage running servers); they generally do NOT throttle download bandwidth because it is automatic. They have a finite capacity but it is to their advantage to use as much of that capacity as possible - they're paying for it. If they find it too expensive to add more capacity they will either allow the pipe to clog, thereby causing customers to leave (and unclogging the pipe); or they will raise prices to allow the additional capacity. Supply and demand on both sides of the provider. Their job is to balance one side with the other.
Especially now with the glut of cheap bandwidth, I can't see providers killing the golden goose by metering broadband. Perhaps somewhere down the road when all the pipes are full and it becomes very expensive to add more. But that is easily 10 or 15 years away based on current usage.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree whole-heartedly. If they want to provide me with service restricted to "256Kbps and 30 GB/day between the hours of 7 am and 7pm, etc..." then that is what they should advertise and sell. When they sell a service without listing restrictions, that is what I expect and what I should get. It should not matter who or how many use that bandwidth, or from where that bandwidth is used.
On the flip side of this coin, how about the people who DON'T use the "maximum acceptable" bandwidth? I don't think any of the providers are sending them emails saying "Gee, you're saving bandwidth and we really appreciate you're not raising our costs." In my opinion, if you're going to complain when somebody uses everything you provide, you ought to be grateful to those who don't take advantage.
My opinion of the way the companies should approach the "problem" of wireless-accessible broadband? Sell the service on a throughput measurement and throttle mean download speeds to the advertised rate. If they don't want to advertise what they REALLY want to sell, stop complaining when people use everything they can. Imagine going to an "All You Can Eat" buffet and being told you can't eat anymore because they didn't expect you to eat as much as 10 people. Hey, you promote unlimited usage - that's what I expect.
I, however, am fairly certain they will NOT change their charging policy. Why not? Probably most importantly flat-rate pricing provides the company with the cheapest billing system possible. Metered service can be implemented, but only at additional cost for everybody, and this is without considering dispute resolution ("Prove that I used 32 GB last month...") From a business perspective, it is probably just as profit-effective to raise prices slightly to compensate for the additional bandwidth required.
As for fairness - when I signed up for broadband, I was not supplied concrete numbers regarding bandwidth availability, up-time, etc. But everybody who signs the $50/month dotted line expects just two things:
(1) Reasonable availability of a relatively high-speed connection
and
(2) They will pay $50/month until the price changes.
The family that uses their broadband for email and light surfing gets what they expected. The tech nut running a server for friends get what he expected. How much more fair to the customer can it get?
As for the company, fairness is dictated by their throttling capability. When they sign up a customer for 512Kbps bandwidth, they should assume the customer will use that bandwidth. They all throttle upload bandwidth (mainly to discourage running servers); they generally do NOT throttle download bandwidth because it is automatic. They have a finite capacity but it is to their advantage to use as much of that capacity as possible - they're paying for it. If they find it too expensive to add more capacity they will either allow the pipe to clog, thereby causing customers to leave (and unclogging the pipe); or they will raise prices to allow the additional capacity. Supply and demand on both sides of the provider. Their job is to balance one side with the other.
Especially now with the glut of cheap bandwidth, I can't see providers killing the golden goose by metering broadband. Perhaps somewhere down the road when all the pipes are full and it becomes very expensive to add more. But that is easily 10 or 15 years away based on current usage.
Just my humble opinion.