Your proposal seems reasonable, if simplistic.
It's simplistic because ISP's don't know in advance what those bandwidth limits need to be, and they don't stay the same with time. We aren't able to predict the future better than anyone else and we can't be competitive unless we overbook to some extent, since market pricing demands overbooking.
Case in point with dialup. In 1995 we could advertise unlimited dialup with no fear that people would actually use their connections more than about 15-30 minutes a day, on average. Some ISP's had a customer/modem ratio of 200:1. The business model allowed us to legitimately say unlimited with no risk of getting burnt. But today, people often do use their connections for 8+ hours and a customer/modem ratio of 10:1 may not be sufficient. Therefore, ISP's either A)lie, B)go slowly bankrupt, C)piss people off by changing policy after the sale.
Note that I'm just trying to explain a small ISP's point of view. I'm not saying it's fully defensible from an idealistic standpoint. If you want me to agree you are "right", I'll agree if that makes you happy.
I run a small ISP, and I can put an end to all this speculation regarding the use of the word "unlimited" -- assuming anybody actually cares.
The reason ISP's use the word "unlimited" in their advertisements is because it sells more accounts than if they don't.
The fact that they are lying is really not a relevant point. Consumers will flock to the guy that says "unlimited" in his advertisements regardless if it's the truth or not. Consumers don't think that hard about the issue.
It should be obvious that you can't provide a dedicated "unlimited" 56K connection profitably
at the $10-$15/mo market rate, but you will sell a lot more accounts if you say "unlimited".
This is also true in the web hosting business. I see advertisements for "Unlimited Bandwitdh" web hosting all the time. But we all know that this is neither physically possible nor economically possible. Still people sign up for these lies.
Guys like me that run businesses that want to be honest about things are punished for our truthfullness. Consumers demand to be lied to. So ISP's are forced to choose between significantly lower sales and being dishonest.
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't ISPs that try to be honest in their offerings. I could give you a list of honest ones that don't use the word unlimited unless they mean it. All I'm saying is that dialup consumers do not typicaly choose these honest guys when they see an "unlimited" offer for the same price.
Slashdot Mirror
I run an ISP, and if IPV6 actually worked, I would give away IP addresses for free to customers. No question.
All kidding aside, antibubbles are widely known. I'm sort-of suprised that this is considered news.
Case in point with dialup. In 1995 we could advertise unlimited dialup with no fear that people would actually use their connections more than about 15-30 minutes a day, on average. Some ISP's had a customer/modem ratio of 200:1. The business model allowed us to legitimately say unlimited with no risk of getting burnt. But today, people often do use their connections for 8+ hours and a customer/modem ratio of 10:1 may not be sufficient. Therefore, ISP's either A)lie, B)go slowly bankrupt, C)piss people off by changing policy after the sale.
Note that I'm just trying to explain a small ISP's point of view. I'm not saying it's fully defensible from an idealistic standpoint. If you want me to agree you are "right", I'll agree if that makes you happy.
The reason ISP's use the word "unlimited" in their advertisements is because it sells more accounts than if they don't.
The fact that they are lying is really not a relevant point. Consumers will flock to the guy that says "unlimited" in his advertisements regardless if it's the truth or not. Consumers don't think that hard about the issue.
It should be obvious that you can't provide a dedicated "unlimited" 56K connection profitably at the $10-$15/mo market rate, but you will sell a lot more accounts if you say "unlimited".
This is also true in the web hosting business. I see advertisements for "Unlimited Bandwitdh" web hosting all the time. But we all know that this is neither physically possible nor economically possible. Still people sign up for these lies.
Guys like me that run businesses that want to be honest about things are punished for our truthfullness. Consumers demand to be lied to. So ISP's are forced to choose between significantly lower sales and being dishonest.
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't ISPs that try to be honest in their offerings. I could give you a list of honest ones that don't use the word unlimited unless they mean it. All I'm saying is that dialup consumers do not typicaly choose these honest guys when they see an "unlimited" offer for the same price.