Comments on: Consumption-Based Billing and The Princess Bride

By: PB

PB — Wed, 27 May 2009 07:34:36 +0000

Armando, that’s what’s called “responsibility.” If you leave the water running, you still have to pay the bill at the end of the month. Same if your plumbing springs a leak. If you leave the lights on, you have to pay the bill; same if your thermostat malfunctions and turns the heat on when you’re away. And it’s exactly the same if you leave the video streaming or your P2P program downloading movies (and sending copies of them to the rest of the Net). Our ISP would prefer to set a flat rate, with limitations such as restrictions on P2P. But if the FCC and/or Congress bans these things (and the “network neutrality” lobbyists are pressing them to do so), we’ll have no choice but to switch to metering. Bandwidth coosts us money and we have to charge for it.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:23:55 +0000

Cablevision has just announced they will begin offering a 100 MEGABIT connection for $99/month. That’s 100/15 Mb/s with NO CAPS, no per GB charges, no strings attached, and they’ll even let you run your own web server. How does TWC defend itself against that pricing plan?

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:15:19 +0000

I see, Mark: when I ask for someone to pay enough for the services they are receiving from me to cover their cost, I am OBVIOUSLY evil and greedy and all sorts of other unspeakable and dastardly things. Clearly, you believe that I should be a charity — that I should bust my derriere building out the Internet, pay for Internet bandwidth, and then give it away for nothing. What’s more, you have the gall to state that you’d like the government to mandate that I do that.

Fortunately, the United States has a Constitution that prohibits it.

By: Michael Cerda

Michael Cerda — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:50:47 +0000

As many have said, it’s not the caps that is the problem but rather the cost. How about something fair? Establish what money you need to generate from a connection at a given speed. Then charge for each GB used. Make that a fair rate, << $1/GB.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:11:06 +0000

And Brett,

I’d have to say, unequivocally, that the U.S. has been and continues to be the Joke of the international community for the LACK of bring high speed to the masses. I travel quite frequently and I am always impressed with how countries have so much more successfully brought high speed bandwidth to the people.

American companies SUCK because they’re concerned with gouging more and more dollars from their customers without really bringing anything new to the table.

Say what you like, but until Congress starts to mandate what your companies can and can’t do with much more efficiency, we’ll continue to see absolutely nothing from you companies but higher prices.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:04:54 +0000

Again, it’s greed, pure, plain and simple. When is enough going to be enough? Never from what I’ve seen here.

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:44:05 +0000

By: Armando Ortiz

Armando Ortiz — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:56:57 +0000

“Frankly, nobody knows what pricing model will work to provide Internet service while consumption increases dramatically year over year.”

@Michael Turk: flat rate for speed differences works just fine.

Not all of us need 19,874,561,235Mbps of pipe. I’m quite happy with 1Mbps – EXTREMELY happy. And I pay for it. And I KNOW I’m paying for it. And I’m HAPPY to pay for it.

I mean…how do you impose a cost on “use” when sometimes a faulty piece of hardware can cause someone’s “use” to exponentially increase?

Are you saying that charging the customer a gazillion dollars for that faulty piece of hardware is justifiable because it’s considered “use?” Hardware can do that for DAYS before anybody notices.

By: Michael Turk

Michael Turk — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:12:26 +0000

To everyone who has posted, whether you agree with us or not, we appreciate the feedback. Despite the accusations of some, this blog was set up to engage in a dialog with people about telecom issues. We’re not always going to agree, but we will always try to be respectful. We are thankful for those that do the same, and hope you’ll continue to engage with us.

To reiterate the point of both of Kyle’s posts, “This is a test. This is only a test.” Time Warner has stated that it will halt plans to roll out these tests pending further discussion with its customers, the public, interested third parties, and elected officials. Their commitment to do so is in line with the way they have moved forward to date.

Frankly, nobody knows what pricing model will work to provide Internet service while consumption increases dramatically year over year. NCTA’s member companies will likely have different approaches to business and pricing. Preventing companies from collecting data to make sound business decisions is a recipe for disaster. Our view, as consumers ourselves and as advocates for an industry, is that consumers absolutely have the right to – and absolutely should – weigh in on any issue they care to . . . but we draw the line at legislating out of existence any pricing model that hasn’t even been implemented.

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:34:58 +0000

Mark, you SHOULD feel dirty, because you are slinging mud. For 17 years, our ISP’s mission has been to bring fairly and reasonably priced, high quality Internet service to rural areas. Our margins are razor thin, and we know our customers personally — every one of them. They are not “dollar signs” to us; they are real people, and they appreciate us for bringing them better service than the cable or telephone company — or, in many cases, for getting them service when the cable or telephone company WON’T do it.

Being a small business which only does Internet, we do not cross-subsidize and we have a limited amount of capital. We cannot afford to lose money on customers; if we do, we are out of business and everyone who relies on us for service is off the Net. Regulate us so that we become unprofitable or cannot meet payroll and we and our colleagues (there are between 4,000 and 8,000 independent ISPs in the US) will be gone and you will have locked yourself into a duopoly.

Is that what you want? If not, think twice before being so greedy. Internet bandwidth costs money, and we have to pay the bills. If you consume more, you need to pay more. And we do have a right to ask that you do.