Web Usage-Based Billing On Its Way 397
tripleevenfall writes with this excerpt from SFGate:
"The days of watching movies on the cheap via the Web may soon be over. Time Warner Cable and U.S. pay-TV companies are on the verge of instituting new fees on Web-access customers who use the most data. ... U.S. providers have weighed usage-based plans for years as a way to squeeze more profit from Web access, and to counter slowing growth and rising program costs in the TV business. While customer complaints hampered earlier attempts, pay-TV companies are testing usage caps and price structures that point to the advent of permanent fees. ... Cable's best option is to find ways to profit from the online shift, said [analyst Craig Moffett]. If the companies were to lose all of their video customers, the revenue decline would be more than offset by lower programming fees and set-top box spending. 'In the end, it will be the best thing that ever happened to the cable industry,' Moffett said."
Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Needs to stop (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been on the horizon for some time here in Canada. We came damn close recently (but massive public outrage managed to stop it), but they are talking about it yet again.
I wish we could just skip through this long painful phase where the established dinosaurs hold back natural progress for as long as possible. We all know this is the future.. and it annoys me that I may not actually see in my lifetime things we could be doing from a technological standpoint right now because some huge established companies refuse to adapt or get out of the way and have the piles of money and armies of lawyers/lobbyists to keep it up for decades.
Honestly, while I don’t have much faith in governments doing things properly nor illusions that it wouldn’t be influenced.. I think at this point I’d love to see Internet access become a government run utility.
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Needs to stop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I could get behind this if it's done reasonably. Figure out what the top 10% of users use, draw a line there and say it's an extra $5 each month you surpass it. Likewise, figure out what the bottom 20% use, draw a line there and knock off $10 for each month they don't surpass it.
Of course, asking these guys to be reasonable is like asking Apple fanboys to use Windows...
Re:Needs to stop (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think that they'll stop with cable? Remember, most cable providers are ISPs as well.
Lets look at it for what it is (Score:5, Insightful)
We are trying to kill off Netflix because they had the foresight to get rights to stream our tv shows before we thought it was a good idea. Now we are losing millions of people to hulu and netflix and others so we are gonna charge you for using thier service and make you use our service since you won't choose us.
Sincerely,
The Cable Dinosaurs
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can beat the army of lobbyists, and then the army of lawyers behind them, and then the army of pressure groups who will demand that the network be censored because the government should not spend tax money to distribute smut.
People will just put up with it. I mean, who really complained about the absurdly expensive data plans and two year contracts to have smart phones? Anyone raise a stink over cable/satellite fees? How's that A La Cart bill coming along?
Re:Needs to stop (Score:5, Insightful)
That's actually very close to what we have here.
In fact the crux of the issue was that the main provider wanted to increase those "reasonable fee's" to the point where 3rd party providers would pretty much have to do caps/usage based billing to stay out of the red. The CRTC, which is supposed to prevent that kind of thing, said "sounds good". It came really damn close to happening, but got effectively vetoed at the last stages by our government due to massive public outcry.
Re:Needs to stop (Score:2, Insightful)
I prefer Swedish models...
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Start locally then in your township. Or start a consortium in the neighborhood / purchase some dedicated circuits. This "shifting profit" model is ridiculous as they are already making fistloads of cash on my monthly service to begin with. If they offered more value then that would be fine, but what value would consumers have going to this model?
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:4, Insightful)
good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone raise a stink over cable/satellite fees?
I'm not sure whether they're raising a stink, but they are slowly but surely stopping spending money on cable. That's why the cable companies are going after people who stream their shows instead.
I know I quit watching cable about 3 years ago and have never looked back. In fact, after cancelling cable, I found that in addition to having some not-insignificant extra cash, I also had a lot more time to read or do charity work or pursue my hobbies.
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
...censored because the government should not spend tax money to distribute smut.
Tax money would not be used, subscribers still pay to use the connection. If someone claims any government involvement allows censorship, then someone else can claim it also prevents distribution of religious programming to maintain separation of church and state. Hopefully everyone will realize the path to getting what they want is not interfering with others getting what they want.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it should be accepted as a fundamental issue that you should either be charged for speed or usage but not both. It's double-dipping to force people to pay for speed and then charge them for volume as well. Without volume, speed is meaningless. Without speed, volume is meaningless.
Paying for one should automatically include the other and as Hatta wrote, it's actually better if we pay for speed rather than volume.
Re:Needs to stop (Score:4, Insightful)
I switched too, but chose TekSavvy for cable internet, as opposed to DSL: that cuts Bell/Telus out too.
Of course, Shaw still makes money via TekSavvy, but I pay $30 / month and am very happy with it.
(Also dropped Rogers for Wind, CIBC for Vancity, and it feels great: better service, equal or better prices (thanks Wind), and... I'm not supporting the parasites with my business!)
YMMV...
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:4, Insightful)
Me. I gave up Cable TV forever ago. And I stoutly refuse to get a smart phone with the ridiculous data costs, especially with the recent data caps. I don't care about internet on my phone that much. Oh, don't get me wrong, I think is a bunch of neat features that smartphones have, but not nearly worth the cost. I think I'd rather just give up my cell phone entirely rather than be forced into a smartphone.
Re:Asking people to pay for what they use?!? OMG! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then stop telling me that is what you're providing. If somewhere upstream can't handle the rate and limits it, that is one thing. But I don't give a rat's ass about your oversubscription issues. If Comcast tells me "20 Mbps", then under no circumstances but the rarest should COMCAST ever throttle me. The upstream provider can rate limit as they need to.
Honestly, I don't mind paying for what I use. What I mind is getting LIED TO about it under the guise of "advertising".
Re:Asking people to pay for what they use?!? OMG! (Score:4, Insightful)
The big problem I have is that the internet is not a consumable resource. Yes, if I drive a lot, or eat a lot, or use a lot of electricity, my gas, food, and electrical bills will go up- but that's because those are resources that can be consumed. The internet (and phone access, by the way) isn't consumed when I access it. It's just There.
Re:Asking people to pay for what they use?!? OMG! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. It's not inline with the operating costs. For gas or electricity, the more you use the more of the resource is used up. Hence, it just makes sense to pay for usage. With bandwidth, it's not exactly the same. There is a large base cost to having a given infrastructure; the additional cost to actually use the infrastructure is comparatively small (routers and switches transferring packets do consume a bit more electricity than routers and switches idling... but this is small compared to the base cost of installing and maintaining the routers and switches at all). In general, people find it unfair for consumer costs to be highly unrelated to actual production costs (it feels arbitrary and like price gouging).
2. Related to #1, it's just generally inefficient not to use data-transmission infrastructure at near 100% capacity. Once the infrastructure is in place, it's cheap to just use it. Thus, it's overall more efficient (in terms of productivity per amount of resource used) to encourage people to use the Internet to capacity. Usage-based billing has the opposite incentive: it encourages people to ration what is in not a traditional resource. (Unused bandwidth is wasted, not banked for a rainy day.)
3. In an overall technological/economic trend sense, usage-based billing has the effect of keeping society locked into a fixed data-transmission infrastructure. The incentive to expand and improve the network, add bandwidth and capacity, is eliminated. Thus progress in telecommunications is stalled. Most people would agree that the deployment of telephones and the rapid expansion of the Internet have been overall beneficial to our economy and technological progress. Thus, it seems like continuing to expand our communications infrastructure would be a good thing. Usage-based billing maintains the status quo instead of encouraging expansion of our networks.
4. As others have pointed out, to the consumer, data bandwidth is more like cable TV or landline telephones: both of which have traditionally been a "pay per month; unlimited usage" model (with many exceptions, of course: long-distance calling, pay-per-view, premium content,
Why is Internet use seen differently?
I think the short answer is: "Because it's different." Bandwidth is not a tangible resource like gas or food. Treating it as one is not efficient.
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Time Warner didn't even lay cable on my side of the street. I've had my house for 3 years, and it was the last one built on this side, so they've been sitting on it for a while. I can't get cable TV, but they keep sending me advertisements to get cable internet.
I like to call them up, very exicted to get a lackage deal, only to be told they would send someone out to see if they can do it. I say, why don't you stop mailing me until you can?
Everyone here has dish already, so they may never even try. Sure they are watching their investments, but 15 years ago they would have had this cabled the day my foundation was finished. One of the guys I worked with had a physical cable across his yard, that his neighbor kept cutting while mowing. They wanted to get him on cable before he got something else, but didn't bury the line - that's how badly they wanted customers. Kept replacing the cable every 6 months, 4 times at least.
Re:Needs to stop (Score:4, Insightful)
So, with other words, in your lifetime, say the next 10 years, there will be a great shift and changes of what media is, how to distribute it, how to pay it, and that model is simply not compatible with the current one.
And the established companies are going to do everything in their power to prevent all of that... and I think they are more able than people give them credit for. A big part of that will be driven by the internet.. which they control. Maybe things arn't as bleak as I think, but I don't think they are as rosy as you do ;p
And all that said, with the growing popularity of "average guy" generated content and the massive lowering of the bar to get content out there.. people still want their multi-million dollar Hollywood flicks and TV shows.
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, that stanleyb is not alone. In my team at work, 1 person never had cable, the other just cancelled his. I am thinking of cancelling mine when this contract runs out, that leaves only 1 person in that small group. I was in the train station and randomly heard employees there talking about cancelling. I have other friends and acquaintances that talk about cancelling.
The stanleyb's may not make a difference on their own, but the group of them is growing, faster and faster.
It will hurt the telcos soon.
(I'm in Canada so my telcos are my TV too)
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't own a smartphone, because I refuse to be ripped off on the insane data rates charged in this country, nor do I have a contract because I am disgusted by the fact I'm forced to buy from a list of phones selected by (and with the software feature set crippled by) the provider, rather than choosing my own at retail or from the manufacturer. Instead I stick with a pay-as-you-go dumbphone. If the telecoms industry wasn't so greedy, they'd get more of my money than they do now.
I likewise have stopped consuming music altogether, with the exception of advertiser-supported, free radio and advertiser-supported, free Spotify. I don't torrent music, but I also no longer buy it either on CD or as downloads, because I object to the removal of my fair-use rights, and the unnecessary DRM schemes on both CDs and downloadable music that put artificial limitations on what devices I can use them with. It's been a decade or more since I last paid a cent to anybody other than private artists selling their own music. If the music industry wasn't so greedy, they'd get more of my money than they do now.
But I digress. My point is, you're not alone, and some consumers do respond by spending less when big business gets greedy. The question is, will that ever be a significant-enough section of the populace to cause a rethink.
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:4, Insightful)
I can attest to this. Google recently offered the small town I work in a deal that would have paid for the construction of an entire wireless infrastructure, and 3 years of support to get the whole town Wi-Fi coverage. They only had to take up support costs after 3 years.
The town declined because Google refused to filter the connection. They were so afraid of somebody might see a tit that they turned down FREE town-wide wifi coverage.
I hate living in the Bible-belt . . . .
So all other ISP's in the town are filtered?
Re:Asking people to pay for what they use?!? OMG! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the DEGREE of fees. It would be like going to a restraunt and finding that the first steak is $10 but if you want more food the "overrage" steak is $50. That is, if you left the restraunt and came back you could eat 2 steaks for $20, or if you sat down and ate 2 at once it would cost you $70.
That's how these overrage fees work. Since there's generally 0 or 1 competitor that can offer a comparable product (no, satellite and wireless internet is not really the same tier as a wired system) they can get away with this.
Now, if these extra charges were REALISTIC compared to their costs + 15 percent profit I'd be fine with them.
What would a realistic fee be? Well, how much is actually providing the bandwidth (versus running the wires themselves or advertising or tech support etc) actually costing the company? That is, what percentage of their total revenue goes to upgrading network switches, paying for higher quality wire, etc.
That percentage is roughly what your fees should be going up by. The math isn't hard to understand.
Suppose there's a $20 "base fee" that gets you 50 gigs a month, and providing more bandwidth costs 30% of the ISP's budget. Then the fee to double the 50 gigs to 100 gigs should be about 6 dollars.
The power company in many states is regulated this way. A slight wrinkle in this is the power company IS allowed to charge people who consume too much power a penalty fee but this is because generating excess power causes pollution and thus it's in the public's best interest for private individuals to make their homes as efficient as possible. Extra internet traffic only costs a small amount more energy.
Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score:5, Insightful)