Comcast May Raise Prices On "Internet Hogs" 578
lunartik writes: "According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Comcast may raise rates on users of their @home service who download a significant amount of audio or video files. Comcast claims that 1 percent of users use 30 percent of capacity. With the flat fee possibly flying out the window for users who utilize the service's speed, one wonders if US broadband is heading the same way as the Aussies." Time Warner has said much the same, and the spiral has probably just begun.
Should help against spammers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Should help against spammers (Score:2, Insightful)
Thus, I could easily see that a per bandwidth charge will lead to anti-spam legislation, or better blocking by ISPs.
(IMHO, as always)
Re:Should help against spammers (Score:2, Interesting)
This will give us legal recourse for lawsuits.
Not only are they wasting our time, they are wasting our money. While the actual damages may be very, very small, punitive damages are what kills.
Re:Should help against spammers (Score:2)
Comcast may raise rates on users of their @home service who download a significant amount of audio or video files.
Spammers typically don't transmit audio or video; it's usually text. However, if Comcast decides to go forward and raise fees for those who transmit a significant amount of data, rather than just audio and video, it could help reduce the amount of spam sent through their system. However, if spam really works, then a small hike in fees is not going to deter the large-scale spammers, anyway.
Re:similar logic should apply to driving (Score:5, Informative)
Equally so, if I only drive 100 miles per month, I should pay a pro-rated insurance fee
Our insurance company asks how far we live from work for exactly that reason. Our rates would be slightly higher if we lived 20 miles from work instead of 2.
As far as the internet usage goes, the same thing. The isp that I use for my email account has a 5 dollar a month e-mail only account, which I've used for years. You get something like 5 hours of dialup service a month with that. Or I could pay 10 for 40 hours and some web space or 20 for unlimited. I believe AOL has a similar 5 hour a month plan as well as a bring-your-own-connnection plan for people with cable modems. Most ISP's have low end, low hour accounts.
Ting!! Your wish has been granted.
Re:similar logic should apply to driving (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, pro-rata internet access is an interesting and logical option. The issue isn't the presence of it, but the rates and limits imposed.
For example, how about $10/m for cable access, etc, and then $10-$20 /m for using it (per 5GB). Low users will pay low cable internet access, high users will pay for what they use. It is fair all around, and a CD ISO download will actually have a cost associated, $1 - $3, that the user can understand. Maybe more people would pay for their software and films then!
Pareto's Principle: The 80-20 Rule (Score:5, Insightful)
"Pareto's rule states that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a ratio of about 20:80. Expressed in a management context, 20% of a person's effort generates 80% of the person's results. The corollary to this is that 20% of one's results absorb 80% of one's resources or efforts."
Re:Pareto's Principle: The 80-20 Rule (Score:4, Funny)
Disgraceful (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Disgraceful (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't they realise that these noble, honourable souls constantly downloading gigabytes upon gigabytes of MP3s and porn deserve a free ride?
No, but I'm already paying by the month [emusic.com] for my MP3s. And Comcast is already gouging me for $55 each month for the cable modem.
The connection is shitty, with frequent lag spikes. Ever had a Google search page stall while loading? It's pretty sad, and I experience it multiple times every day. $55 is already outrageous for the crap quality of the connection they give me, and now I'll be expected to pay more for those laggy, stalling downloads of MP3s I've already paid for.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Re:Disgraceful (Score:2)
I wonder why ? Yes, it's because of the bandwidth hogs, ho use ten times what they are paying for. If you need more bandwidth. If not, you're going to be better off if the bandwidth hogs are required to pay more.
Re:Disgraceful (Score:3, Insightful)
They can't use ten times more bandwidth than they are paying for; they are merely efficiently using all the bandwidth they have been allocated.
This is unless of course you are referring to people hacking their cable modems to increase their alloted bandwidth, in which case, these users can be singled out and cut off.
graspee
Re:Disgraceful (Score:2)
Re:Disgraceful (Score:4, Interesting)
When you sign up for their service, you pay for a certain speed for a certain ammount of $/month. Whether or not you use that is your business - you paid for it, its yours to use. If comcast is running out of bandwidth, its their fault - they oversold without proper planning. This will "solve" that problem. If they want to cut back on bandwidth in order to save money, this will help. Their greediness is an excuse to fuck the consumer in the ass.
Why is comcast doing this for JUST video and music? Did the RI/MPAA threaten them?
Who cares if i download alot of music and videos? What if i have alot of friends who do their own electronic music? What if every relative i know posts three hour long iMovies of them and their kids to the web, and i want to download that? How is that different from a Linux geek downloading 10 distribution isos? Comcast is acting like they know the answer. What, 200 three-meg MP3s somehow costs them more bandwidth than a 600 meg RedHat iso? Bits are bits. If someone wanted to get around this, just download everything as a
Of course, later on in the article, they talk about people hosting their own webservers, and that they are the people putting strain on the network. If that's even true, what does that have to do with my movie and music downloads?
This is one of the most asinine ideas i've ever heard of.
Re:Disgraceful (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not how it works, sorry. If Comcast--or any ISP--assumed the worst, that each user would be transferring some massive amount of data per month--then they just couldn't handle it. And no ISP in existence could either. There isn't enough bandwidth for that.
Phone companies have done the same thing for years. You *assume* that when you pick up the phone you will have a free line, but if everyone picked up the phone at the same time then many--even the majority--would not get lines. Phone companies plan for phone calls of certain lengths, and they have to worry about exceptions like radio call-in contests and Mother's Day (the day with the most phone traffic).
Re:Disgraceful (Score:5, Interesting)
* Unlimited Use for a Flat Monthly Fee
(plus applicable franchise fees and taxes)
* Up to 7 Email Addresses
* 25 MB of Personal Webspace
* Exciting, new homepage - all of your favorites: news, weather, stocks, etc. Plus, exclusive broadband content featuring streaming video and high-quality sound
* "My File Locker" Web storage space for files like MP3s, digital photos and more (NEW feature!)
* Ability to publish personal web pages
* Round-the-clock Customer Service - dedicated Internet specialists available online or by phone
* Member Services - account management, FAQs, and trouble-shooting information are just a click away
* Additional fees may apply
If they're trying to be profitable, why do they offer all of this junk?
I would be that it costs more to maintain this My File Locker, comcast.net "portal", and other garbage than it costs them from 'heavy users'. Why do they feel they need to have streaming video in their portal page? And they're worried about bandwidth costs?
Re:Disgraceful (Score:3, Informative)
If they're trying to be profitable, why do they offer all of this junk?
Because it's locally hosted.
Connecting your youse to the cable modem exchange thingy is easy; they already own the cables, and just have to put data through them. This costs them essentially nothing.
The cost is the connection from the exchange to the internet. They pay for it by usage, and hence want you to use it as little as possible.
If they get a reuters newsfeed and some other junk for a home page, they can put it on a server at the exchange, without having to use the expensive internet connection. This saves them money.
Of course, this relies on people using thier portal site. I know I don't use my ISP's portal. But the majority of users probably do use the home page.
Michael
Re:Disgraceful (Score:5, Insightful)
I pay for unlimmited internet acess. What this means to me is that I will be allowed to use my connection for whatever purposes I want (baring the breaking of laws, but they have to prove it). Now, if they have 100 customers (keeping it small to make the numbers easier) and 100 units of bandwidth. Theoreticaly speaking, each user is alloticated 1 unit of bandwidth. But if 70 of the users are only using 20 bandwidth units collectively, why should the other 30 users not be allowed to take full advantage of their 30 units and the remaining 50.
There is a certain ammount of bandwidth, if other users are not using it, why can't I? And as another user pointed out, since my modem is capped anyway, how am I using any more than my alloted share anyways?
Re:Disgraceful (Score:2)
just a ploy (Score:3, Insightful)
"Comcast, however, has no immediate plans to offer a lower-priced, slower service. David N. Watson, Comcast Cable Communications Inc.'s senior vice president of marketing, sales and customer service, said at a recent conference that it would be "pretty premature" for the company to offer a lower-priced broadband service, given that its current offering is selling well."
Re:just a ploy (Score:2)
What I'd really like to see is a "power user" or "enthusiast" service with higher caps and the ability to run VPNs (very useful for the work-at-home crowd), or even low bandwidth servers. I'm sure there'd be plenty of people willing to pay to be able to run their own SSH daemon without being in violation of the TOS. I know I would be.
Not sure about this. (Score:2, Insightful)
The big question to ask is whether this extra money they earn is going to be put into improving the system that they currently have, and thus over time improve service for all of their customers.
(This is all IMHO, meaning no offense to anyone)
About Time Warner ... (Score:5, Informative)
What's the problem with this? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't like their prices, change providers. If no provider has prices you like, then what you're asking for probably isn't financially viable. (Yes, we all want BMWs for $17,000, but that isn't going to happen.)
Plus, if they wanted to be a total bastards, they could continue to jack up the rates until those 1% left. If those top 1% left, they could have 30% more capacity at a cost of only 1% of their revenue. Then, they could add 30% more customers with a usage profile like the other 99%. That seems like good business to me. It's also called increasing shareholder value.
Re:What's the problem with this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there are more diamonds on this planet than necessary to lower the price to $20 per carat, but it will never happen... too much money to be made if they all cost $1500.
Oh, and those 1% are the most enthusiastic. The web would die if only the 99% AOL crowd was on it. But then, they'd just sit around crying about how the net up and died, for no explainable reason, and "oh well" about it like morons.
Re:What's the problem with this? (Score:2)
That IIS worm slammed my DSL connection for *months*. I was getting on the order of 5 or 10 attacks per second. (im not even running a web server, they bounce off the firewall). Once again -- should i have to pay for that ?
Re:What's the problem with this? (Score:2, Interesting)
" Drive away with your brand new BMW for only $17,000"
Oh that offer is for the first 10 kilometers. After that you owe us $25,000 more. You wanted wheels? Another low fee of $5000.00. Can I interest you in state mandatory airbags?
-Yo Grark
"Canadian Bred with American buttering"
Re:What's the problem with this? (Score:2)
If they kept raising their prices then the bottom 99% would be asking why they need this service if they're just going to do light browsing and go back to a dialip. The P2P people need this so they'll probably pay up.
If those top 1% left, they could have 30% more capacity at a cost of only 1% of their revenue.
There will always be a top 1% even if the average usage is 50 megs transfer per month. Unlesss you're going to start delivering some hard numbers then you aren't saying much. For instance, today its the guy using 50 gig per month. Next time profits are low it'll be the guy using 5 gigs per month until everyone has a always on 56k connection for $20 a month.Thanks but no thanks.
Finding a profitable business plan is going to take some time and I doubt transfer limits is the answer especially when web content like ordianry news and entertainment sites are using mega doses of flash and steaming video. Not to mention new-ish applications that are starting to take root like VPN from home to work, videoconferencing, next gen P2P, etc.
Transfer limits seems like the lazy way out. Intelligent throttling based on demand or lowered speeds (600k down instead of T1 down) will probably win out. Transfer limits ignore that the internet technologies are expanding and user greater bandwidth. No is going to switch to Lynx because their ISP can't handle the ever increasing flash ads, banner ads, video, etc.
Re:What's the problem with this? (Score:2)
Do it yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, "broadband" is getting more expensive, but more importantly, its getting restricted.
Its not all that hard to get a T1 and share it with neighbors (for a pretty good price), so if prices go up too much, just do that. Of course, youll want to go visit the teenage "leet"-dude across the street with a baseball bat when hes at it if you dont limit the bandwidth, but thats just the way the ISPs feel now.
Flat pricing is obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)
-If there is significant overhead to individually billing. For instance for water some municipalities flat charge because the cost of installing water meters at every house is prohibitive. Alternately there can be a significant overhead administratively for some systems (for instance for gas and electricity a guy has to come around reading meters). None of these apply to internet connections where it's trivial to meter usage, and electronic billing has made exceptional billing very cheap.
-When you convince people that they will use far more than they actually will, when in reality you know by experience that they won't. I got a "flat fee" membership for the year to Canada's Wonderland (only the cost of going twice!), yet in reality I know that I'll probably go maybe twice all year. Tonnes of memberships rely on this. Gym memberships force you into the "flat fee" because they know that most people will come for two weeks, and then never come again, yet they're tied in for a year.
-When you're a heavy user and you know that everyone else is subsidizing you. This is the case with (former) @Home's where the bandwidth requirements are overwhelmingly to support a few people, and everyone is ranting and raving about how slow the connection is because Jimmy has a 24/7 gnutella serving running.
The only ones who'll be frothing about how outrageous this is are the people who are abusing the system (the 1%).
Re:Flat pricing is obsolete (Score:2)
i don't consider myself an "abuser", i dont use p2p applications, and i dont host a games server (though i do play games online). i easily go over the 5 gigs a month that most of these companies seem to be leaning towards.
the fact is that there are increasingly more and more things on the web that are designed for high-speed users (high quality video streams, games designed for broadband only, internet radio, etc)... and now that they are becoming more commonplace we won't be able to use them in the near future. frankly if i cant use theese features without paying an extra 10 bucks a month per gig over 5 i just wont use them at all (or whatever pricing they decide on). when that happens there is no longer a point to having broadband.
i would just go back to my dual 56k shotgun setup and forget about it at that point. if all these broadband providers want you to do is websurfing and email there is no point to broadband.
i don't mind some reasonable limits that inhibit running a mp3 or warez server 24/7, but the 5 gig number i've seen mentioned so often wouldn't cut it in my opinion, and would certainly drive me away
Re:Flat pricing is obsolete (Score:2)
Bell Sympatico (Score:2, Informative)
The price is enough to make me look at other options like dsl.ca that is still offering 1Mbit service for a flat rate of $35 although who knows how long it will last.
I don't disagree that flat rate pricing causes the majority to subsidize the few but I think that 5GB is far to little. I can use that in a month easily and I don't even do any P2P.
Re:Bell Sympatico (Score:2)
Re: Bell Sympatico (Score:2)
I agree with you that these changes should prompt the users to consider other options. I certainly will be. All those posters complaining that we can't expect flat rate service haven't looked into all the service providers competing for my dollars.
US Goverment may raise taxes on "Money Hogs" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:US Goverment may raise taxes on "Money Hogs" (Score:2)
Only in the good old USA, the warez and pr0n users would get free service!
if comcast was the US government (Score:2, Funny)
Re:if comcast was the US government (Score:2)
while the top 1% pays a larger percentage of taxes, they have a *FAR* larger share of the wealth.
the americans getting screwed the worst are middle class single workers, as far as money held / taxes paid.
Re:US Goverment may raise taxes on "Money Hogs" (Score:2)
Silicon Valley (AP) - Comcast announced they will providing subsidies for "bandwidth achievers", giving an additional 500kbps in bandwidth to those individuals who have managed to transfer large amounts of data. Dell and General Motors employees will be getting an additional 1mbps for downloading approximately 85 gigs of mp3's in the first quarter, despite the fact most of those mp3's are going to be redistributed from the gnutella servers they moved to Mexico last year.
When asked if this made sense, considering the fact these "bandwidth achievers" could collected such a mass of data because they have many powerful computers sharing the connection, as opposed to smaller customers unable to compete with minimal resources, a Comcast representative said, "We thought that way too, until we saw the potential for kickbacks from these guys when we're up for re-electi..umm...renewal of our car and computer support contracts. God bless America."
Re:US Goverment may raise taxes on "Money Hogs" (Score:2)
Oh, I get it -- funny "sad", not funny "haha"...
So tell corporate america to stick it and go co-op (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn it! I'm sooo sick of people WHINING here on slashdot. Oh, wait. Slashdot. If you don't like their policies, DON'T USE THEIR SERVICE. If you live in a metro area, go find some high speed hookup, get 10, 20, or 50 guys together in a close area, and set up your own high-speed network. We did this when I was going through university and it worked great. I live in a rural area, and the only way I'll ever see broadband again is if I take it upon myself to fix the situtation. Let's see here - 30 guys paying in $50/mo gives you $1500/mo to buy a pipe from or maintain leases on equipment. Do you have twenty people in networking range? How much bandwidth would that get? Could you get more than 30? Who would pay more? How important is your suckage in the long term? Would getting a fat pipe to someone's house, remotely dling your pr0n^h^h^heducational videos via a slower connection, and doing SneakerNet runs suffice?
I thought that america was the land of the "can do" attitude, not the bend-over-and-take-it capital of the world. (and whine about it). Look at what the auzzies are doing to combat the horrible internet and communications rates over there - projects like Sydney Wireless [sydneywireless.com] and others in europe have gone so far as to start laying their own cable. Get out and talk to your neighbours, take the initiative.
It could very well be that the current model doesn't work, because that 1% of users is exceeding the cable companies cost. It could be that you don't even need that much internet connectivity if you establish a well-stocked neighbourhood peer-to-peer net. I know another solution some of the residence dwellers use here is their own 802.11 network that isn't routed onto the campus network, or campus-owned.
If you don't have time, then accept the services offered at the market rate.
Man, I'm in a bad mood this morning. No coffee. But if I see another one of these whining threads, I'm going to scream! Might as well post a anti-MPAA diatribe, follow it up with a spiderman-II article.
Makes Sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
Those who use more should pay more. Bandwidth is finite and getting more to the ISP costs them more, which in turn costs everyone more. I'm not going to pay for other people's downloads and I don't expect others to do it for me.
Re:Makes Sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
What exactly is wrong with this? (Score:2)
The obvious solution is to charge the high use costomers more. That will either offset the cost of increased capacity or discourage the additional use, reducing the need for extra capacity.
Of course, IMHO the additional charge for high use costomers should be balanced to not overly discourage them, as they are exactly the users who will drive new, more compelling content, which will bring more users to see the Internet as an important resource (whether for entertainment or other uses), driving up the total user base.
Eventually the threshold for what defines "high use" will be foreced up as the average user requires a consistantly high bandwidth connection. By that time , the current high use customers will have funded (and driven) the development of a system that can supply that bandwidth. There will of course be those who, because of new uses, require more than the current "average" bandwidth, continuing the cycle.
Again, why exactly is this a bad thing?
Easy Solution. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Easy Solution. (Score:5, Informative)
This is when you do a 180 and screw your customers because you never had a viable business plan to begin with. Sorry, but the warez kiddie bought your service because of how you offered it to him. May your customers leave for a company with a working business plan and you can have the T1 all to yourself.
Re:Easy Solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cable has extraordinary bandwidth.. so this isn't a last mile problem. This is a problem occurring at the backbone level - bandwidth is expensive. It shouldn't be! I don't know the answer, but why is it that long distance and wireless have fallen through the floor while data seems to be getting more expensive? Why are there networks like Internet2, which is AMAZINGLY fast, connecting our universities while we're stuck on capped, metered connections?
Sounds fine to me... (Score:2)
Cable plans are matching DSL plans (Score:4, Informative)
In general you paid the same for DSL vs Cable but got more with the cable service. Well, that's changing now. Cable companies have noticed that they are basically giving away a T1 worth of bandwidth for $50/month. They see how the phone company can offer high-end business DSL for $250/month and want to cash in... so they are copying the DSL's price scheme.
Charter Communications is my current cable provider. Their plans are something like this:
256Kb Down / 64Kb Up - $30
768Kb Down / 128Kb Up - $40
1Mb Down / 256Kb Up - $60
1.5Mb Down / 384Kb up - $100
These are very similar to verizon/at&t/etc DSL packages. I figure most of the other cable providers will switch to a similar plan soon. They save bandwidth, make more money and the only people to really complain are the 1% who are causing all the bandwidth problems in the first place. That 1% doesn't have any alternative except for DSL, which has the same pricing plans... and we know they won't go back to dial-up.
The problem is choice, not price (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with cable pricing is that generally, companies have a monopoly on their areas and therefore users don't have any choice beyond paying whatever rate is decreed or accessing the internet by some other (and often inferior) method.
If the market for cable services were opened, I'd see no problem with companies imposing whatever pricing structure they see fit.
My beef (Score:5, Insightful)
So if I'm given 10GB/month in downstream then why should I bother to do any large transfers at night? a byte is a byte and I'd rather just leave my computer off. If, on the other hand, they said that bandwidth was free off-peak(after 11pm before 9am) then I could agree with their plan. I would have an incentive to queue files and download them over night, rather than during the day.
A very simple question: (Score:5, Insightful)
It's important to note that you can't "save" bandwidth for later (unlike water or electricity), and the ISP pays for its pipe whether it's saturated or not, so wouldn't this kind of usage-based throttling of an instant resource simply make more sense? The more you use, the less you get (but only when it's scarce).
Is it really so expensive for an ISP to implement this at the headend versus the small difference it takes to account for the number of Gigs you transfer and charging obscene rates for overages, even during offpeak hours?
--
Re:A very simple question: (Score:2)
All you can do is decrease load and then decrease fuel consumption accordingly. I guess in a way this is "saving electrictiy for later" but it is hard for me to think of a pile of coal or a tank of oil as electricty that is being saved for later.
Maybe in the future power plants will have giant super-conductive rings that can store power, but I promise you that your local coal/gas/oil/nuke/hydro/wind/solar plant doesn't have thirty ton lead-acid batteries so that unused power can be saved.
-Peter
Re:A very simple question: (Score:2)
I think that the above line is the critical thing, a service was advertised, some people are using it AS advertised and now the ISP is complaining that their custormers are using it as advertised.
Surely we arent all going to be expected to accept that people can say one thing and mean another... er ok maybe already do.
this is how some universities are doing it (Score:2)
Re:A very simple question: (Score:4, Informative)
At any given point during the day, the ISP has a certain number of customers using bandwidth. Not every customer is using bandwidth at the exact same time. The ratio is roughly 20 to 1. That means at any given second, 1 out of 20 customers is using bandwidth (I work for a DSL provider, that number is accurate for us.. but it'll vary per provider).
Bandwidth hogs throw off that ratio. They abuse the system. If the ISP had to treat all of it's customers as "potential bandwidth hogs", they would need to account for a ratio of 1:1, instead of 20:1. They would literally have to raise the cost of your service by 2000 percent.
Capping is the other option, but again, the cable company would have to cut your bandwidth by 95%... because you want to change the ratio from 20:1 to 1:1.
So which is it? Would you like to pay $1000/mo instead of $50/mo? Or would you like to be capped at 15 kbit/s instead of 300?
If you don't like it.. tough shit.. go start your own ISP, and see how much you'd have to charge in order to give your users the ability to max out their pipe 24/7.
Re:A very simple question: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, you can. If you don't need it straight away, you should be able to schedule it for later download. I mean, when computing power is scarse (as it does with big iron), you can run batch jobs overnight.
The problem is not that bandwidth is not "saveable", but no programs routinely do it, and people are generally impatient to wait.
Bandwidth traffic can be greatly reduced if greater use of bug-fix cds were made use of. A 100 meg download may cost you and other people more in connection time and storage media, then a $5 mass-printed cdrom. The same could even be done for Linux distros, etc.
Re:A very simple question: (Score:2)
Just in case you missed the point though, not everyone would be capped equally. Only the "hogs" who have used more cumulative bandwidth (counting even @ 3AM) would be capped at 5PM peak.
i.e. At peak, Grandma could still download her email at a 1MB/s max, Joe the-weekend-porn-downloader might get a little less than that because of his slightly above average usage, and "Evil" P2P Mike might be throttled to 15K/s (unless he wants to pay more).
--
Re:A very simple question: (Score:3, Informative)
A "Mom & Pop" ISP probably pays some level of transfer fees, but the big boys (like the ones in this story) have dedicated links to peering partners that they either build themselves or lease from a major telco. I don't know much about "paid peering" (which isn't peering at all) but I think that is generally at a flat rate as well.
The economics at this level work a lot differently than your DSL or cable modem. At this level the more data you move the more attractive you are as a peering partner, because you can provide a short route to your not-so-little chunk of the internet.
-Peter
Where is the problem? (Score:2)
Everyone's always complaining about the imbalance of wealth in this country and demanding that the richest 1% should stop controlling 90% of our finances, but as soon as you're in the 1% that gets 30% of the bandwidth it's you're God-given right to steal as much music as possible. Give me a break.
Contrary to popular belief, the Internet in't free (Score:2)
Now I know that the marketing of several of these so called broadband companies has been way off. When they speak of unlimited, they mean that you don't run up a phone bill (in Europe) or that you can always leave it on. Not that you can just burn all that your line can do.
The price that you're paying for current broadband is based on the simple arithmetic, that people won't always use all their bandwidth. If they do, the prices should be higher, other wise the ISP is going out of business. If you think you've got a right to use the full 2mbit your DSL offers, either pay the full amount it costs; 300 euros + extra's or you have been delusional and have bought into the marketing hype too much. If you've bought the marketing hype, you're not a bright nerd and you should consider it tuition for the school of life.
Greetings.. off to sleep.
If ISPs start down this road... (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking of webcasters, I can't help thinking that RIAA would be very happy if metered billing by ISPs went through. A 30Kbytes/sec. feed would be 1.8 Mbyte/min., so a gigabyte in maybe seven hours of listening. You wouldn't even need the insane royalty and record-keeping requirements CARP wanted to impose to kill webcasting, if all the listeners suddenly decide they can't afford to stay tuned in for very long. Then everyone can go back to being force-fed the latest clone band and obediently buying CDs they way they're supposed to...
The Devil is in the details (Score:2)
Not all bandwidth is equal (Score:4, Interesting)
RX: 20GB
TX: 1.5GB
Now, that sounds like quite a lot, and sure, it's probably a fair bit above average. Except, I doubt more than a couple of those GB's ever made it outside my provider's network, because most if it is from usenet.
Should I be charged more for using a local news service and my providers internal bandwidth? More importantly, should I be charged the same as some guy who spends those 20G's on Gnutella, 90% of which is jumping off to random nodes around the world and eating the bandwidth they actually pay for?
Worms? (Score:5, Interesting)
Such a worm would be a godsend in the sense that after someone is hit with a $100+ cable modem bill, they're going to make sure they're up to date on bugfixes for their OS/mail client. This could lead to less use of Outlook and other vulnerable platforms which could reduce the worm's effectiveness. However, the immediate result would be a public outcry for being charged for bandwidth that they claim they didn't use.
I saw it suggested earlier in the thread, but in my opinion the most effective way to deal with bandwidth hogs would be to throttle them and the commonly used P2P ports. The content is still available and you still have the speed and "unlimited transfer rate" that makes broadband such a wonderful service.
Flat rate pricing is the only way to go (Score:2)
If they want to avoid the animosity being thrown at them, then they really need to end the doubletalk, promising all this speed for games, music and video and then calling those who actually use it bandwidth hogs.
They need look no further than the huge jump in subscribers that came when AOL switched to flat rate pricing, and it doesn't take too much imagination to see where it will go. The growth of Internet accsess in Europe and many other places also says a lot about how essential flat rate pricing can be.
DSL and Private ISPs May Have a Future Afterall... (Score:2)
As of now, Comcast in my area (southeastern PA) is offering ISP service that virtually no one else is able to compete with...small ISPs can't match their speed/price and DSL isn't available in many areas.
However, if Comcast raises prices excessively, telcos may again see a real incentive to upgrade their switches and lines to allow for greater DSL penetration.
And don't count small ISPs either...as of now, most people needing faster ISP access just call their cable company without even thinking twice about it...but with high prices and limits, more people will shop around first before signing up.
Some will ask how can the mom and pop ISP compete...sure bandwidth is cheap and plenty is available, but how can they bridge the "last mile"...well, that's been solved...many small ISPs offer high speed service via packet radio from their facility to the customer. Works amazingly well and there's no noticable latency unlike satillite service.
I never thought I'd ever use a small mom and pop ISP again, but if Comcast isn't careful, I will...here in the Reading, PA area, there are some local ISPs that offer high speed access via radio and other alternative methods...who says cable has a monopoly...they control the cable path, but who says that's the only way...one has many options on how data gets to and from their computer and more people will explore these if their cable isp bills get insane.
To be fair here, I'm generally happy with Comcast's service and wouldn't mind paying a little more for faster data transfer with a reasonable transfer limit...but if Comcast thinks 5GB/month is enough, they'd better rethink that...even the so-called average user can easily exceed that...something like 30 GB/month would be more reasonable.
File swapping (Score:2)
lower-priced, slower service? (Score:2)
- Comcast, however, has no immediate plans to offer a lower-priced, slower service.
Damn right they don't. When they took over @home in my area, download speed dropped by 75%, uploads dropped by 96% and prices went up by 25%. Comcast is a monopoly in my area, they know it, and they're taking advantage of it.Re: (Score:2)
Bye Bye "Common Carrier"-like protection (Score:2)
ISPs have argued [eff.org] that they should not be liable for the actions of their users because, in part, the burden of monitoring users is too great.
Comcast should not open this Pandora's box by targeting specific content for higher fees. If they want to charge more for excessive bandwidth consumption, fine. But they should not even attempt to demonstrate that content can be monitored. If it can be monitored, it can be censored.
Re:Bye Bye "Common Carrier"-like protection (Score:2)
they are demonstrating that monitoring traffic is not an undue burden.
There's a load of difference between monitoring bandwidth usage and monitoring content.
Re:Bye Bye "Common Carrier"-like protection (Score:3, Insightful)
You're absolutely right, but they're singling out "audio or video files." That information is content.
Contracts (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, I'm now with Pacbell/SBC DSL, wouldn't this same principle apply? I have an 18 month obligation (free installation and DSL modem). Is it legal for them to increase the montly rate on something I'm locked into for a year an a half?
After this, what advantage will there be Over DSL? (Score:2)
If comcast is gonna start charging more for me to use more, then they damn well better lift the upload/download caps so that I that I can use it when I want to. .
The problem with all this is that it's not going to benefit customers in any possible way. Speeds will not improve for others; the network's capacity is not taxed currently. The upload/download caps make it so that only a faction of the total bandwidth availlable is ever at use at any give time. The caps are there so that comcast can create a new high speed service for buisness that they can charge more for. In other words, they've turned bandwidth into a commodotiy. They are limmitting supply intentionally, so they can drive up the price. Its pathetic and only works because they are a Monopoly. Capitalism strikes again. . .
Online video killer (Score:3, Interesting)
If restrictions are truly unavoidable (and I doubt they are) I agree with those promoting the idea of AVERAGE bandwidth used, not total volume transfered. As long as I have the ability to transfer large files at off-peak hours without restrictions, I won't be *too* unhappy.
On the other hand, could this be considered anti-competitive? Though most of us don't currently watch television via IP (well, not legitimately anway), it's likely that studios will eventually find DRM they're happy with and will sell programs online.
In the case of AOL/TW, assume that they will eventually allow downloading of video content, and that they will likely exclude their own packets from the user's quota. How will anyone else compete with that, when downloading a few decent sized programs will easily cost a few dollars each in excess bandwidth charges alone? How does this compare with "must carry" rules cable companies are currently forced to honor?
Hogs? (Score:2)
Screw their corporate mentality, and go get your connectivity from a company [speakeasy.net] that has a correct philosophy of what the Internet is, and encourages you to make the most of it.
Let's compare this to... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we'll find that it is customary for the highest usage customers to recieve discounts, not rate increases.
Telephone: Residential lines run what? $15-$25/month? But purchase several hunded lines, and you can get them for $5/month.
air-travel: the most frequent customers get free upgrades, discounts and special incentives.
Roadways: Most toll roads allow frequent travellers to purchase a dicount pass, or other reduced rate access method. For example, I recall the NJ Parkway used to sell tokens where you got something like 45 tokens for $10, when the tolls were $.25 each.
The list could go on... so many other goods and services in this economy are discounted for the highest consumers. Why should a service like this that is based on fixed cost be any different?
Makes sense for the most part (Score:2)
I don't even download ISOs much personally -- I just want to BE ABLE TO.
Wow, the lack of knowledge here is sad. (Score:2, Informative)
1. Bandwidth costs money.
2. This money must come from the users of an ISP.
2. If you use more bandwidth, you cost more money, and your ISP thus has the right to charge you more.
However:
4. Bandwidth does not cost $0.10 per MB, as many ISPs are planning to charge for overuse. Most of these ISPs get it for between $0.50 and $1.00 per GB.
5. Because most of the infrastructure required by your ISP is already there, extra bandwidth use does not require an ISP to pay for a large amount of additional equipment, or costs other than that charged for the actual bandwidth itself.
From this we can conclude that:
7. A markup on the price of bandwidth of 100 to 200 times is excesive, even with any additional costs an ISP incures.
8. Legislation on ISP bandwidth pricing schemes is quite likely going to become necessary in the future, if the Internet has any hope of living on in the fashion in which it exists today.
Get rid of the porn, and get rid of the problem (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, we could always unionize, and begin charging Comcast and the @Home mafia for the fact they pass along advertisements into our browsers without prior approval or consent. Doing so might offset such a "metered usage" tax imposed on us.
Then again, you can always just uncap your cable modem, and get the milk thru the fence.
Cheers,
Ireland equivalent precident is interesting: (Score:4, Informative)
Then they just kicked off the people that were using it the most. They were allowed to get away with it, but the backlash from the disconnected customers (myself included) was high.
Here is the coverage on Wired from the incident:
Wired coverage of Ireland's flat-rate ISP kicking off its frequent users [wired.com]
I have no problem with metered bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
Bandwidth isn't the same as other things (Score:3, Insightful)
But bandwidth isn't the same as other things at all.
For instance, it makes sense to pay more for power if you use more. The reason is that the power you use ultimately translates to fuel expended. Fuel costs money, so the more fuel you use, the more you have to pay to offset the costs.
But bandwidth? It's not the same at all. Let's look at the costs:
I don't think I missed anything important, but if I did, please let me know.
So what's the point? Simple: bandwidth itself isn't what costs money. What costs money is the labor and equipment used to provide that bandwidth.
And that is why it doesn't, in general, make sense to charge more for people who use more bandwidth: those people aren't costing the provider any more money at all or, if they are, it's only because the provider was stupid enough to sign peering agreements in which they pay for the bandwidth they use instead of a flat fee. Instead, if the ISP is undercharging for their services (i.e., can't pay the bills based on the money they get from their subscribers), they should either cut their costs or raise their prices. But before doing either one, they'd better have a good handle on where they're spending their money first.
It's only if a few select subscribers are causing quality of service issues that are, in turn, substantially raising the amount of labor required to keep the operation going that charging those subscribers more may make sense. But I would argue that, in that case, those subscribers are either abusing the service (true only if they're using a substantial amount of bandwidth to initiate DOS attacks against others) and therefore should have their service terminated, or (more likely) that the service itself is oversubscribed. The latter isn't the customers' problem, it's the provider's problem, and charging based on bandwidth used is an entirely inappropriate response, in my opinion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bandwidth isn't the same as other things (Score:3, Interesting)
My understanding (misinformed as it may be) is that a very large portion of the costs of bandwidth are related to the construction of the links themselves. That those costs are so high that most players can't even get into the game because of them, which is why large, monopolistic companies who already own a great deal of telecommunications infrastructure are really the only guys left. If that's the case, then there's plenty of bandwidth left to be taken advantage of, because there's a lot of dark fiber that remains to be lit up.
In the meantime, like I said, if a network provider is having bandwidth problems, it probably means that the provider is oversubscribed, and that's his problem. He can take advantage of that situation by raising his prices to all his customers, and I think this is exactly what we're seeing.
Making customers pay for some amount of bandwidth usage over some fixed amount is certainly one way to raise the price, but don't make the mistake of believing that the cost of bandwidth really is proportional to the amount of bandwidth used: it isn't, and any such proportional price structure is strictly artificial.
Re:It's only because they have a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
it costs money to provide data. ISPs that used to offer flat rate 128k up/down DSL in New Zealand have realised that it costs far too much to support P2P piracy and simply allow people an amount of international data. For example, I get 10GB a month.
The 1% that article quotes are subsidised by the other 99%. I, for one, don't want to subsidise them.
Re:It's only because they have a monopoly (Score:2)
this is simply a taxing of a small fraction of their users who are using much more than their share of the bandwidth.
again, from an economic stand-point this makes sense - if everyone is paying the same amount, some users will be inclided to take as much as possible
_f
Re:Consumers Can Boycott Them & They Go Bankru (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This should be illegal (Score:2)
I'm sure that in every single one of those contracts there is a clause that states they are allowed to revise pricing and other policies without consulting the customer.
Boy, this sure wouldn't be a problem if there were competition, would it? Silly government-allowed telco monopolies.
Re:This should be illegal (Score:2)
Re:How about some consistent editing??? (Score:2)
It's too bad for you that your story didn't get picked,etc. I've had a few turned down, as well...
On the other hand, I've got a feeling that oftentimes they get a whole shitload of duplicate submissions, and it is only by getting more than submission of the same article that they realize that people find it important. In this case, it makes sense to take an article that isn't immediately newsworthy (this is not a huge thing) and wait and see how many article submissions "vote" for it.
It's too bad for you, but hey -- maybe the system works after all.
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
I know a number of people that have downloaded multiple gigabytes in a month, but until I heard the specifics of this case I didn't realize people were that stupid.
Re:Communism (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest complaint I have with systems like this is that they only look to charge more to the people using the "majority" of their bandwidth. How about "low usage credit" for people who underutilize their bandwidth? Or, for that matter, just bypass all the in-between rigamarole and decide what bandwidth per month is "normal," divvy it into units (kilobytes or megabytes), and charge per unit so that the rate matches the current fee for "normal" use. But this simply reduces their profit, since 99% of their users are checking email and ordering tchotchkes on the web, and would undoubtedly clock in well under a $40 per month flat fee. No, they aren't losing their shorts on these customers, but they sure can see how to drain 'em for a few more bucks.
Re:The glass is always 0.5 empty (Score:2)
Buinesses will only change pricing to increase profits, never decrease it!
Re:Perfect Solution: (Score:2)
Re:Perfect Solution: (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably still not very cheap, but paying for the T1 connection and then paying the ISP to have access to it would just be dumb. _You_ should be charging the ISP for access to _your_ T1 line.
Re:why not allow us to run servers for add'l fee (Score:3, Informative)
Until they have cable systems that were designed from the start of internet, and have symmetric upstream/downstream, the are going to restrict servers.