kapil
The Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL
1 edit | Nope
They'll try, the greedy providers, to sustain their unrealistic revenue growth projections and to try and prop up their failing stock prices which will plummet once investors in companies like AT&T realize they have no next-gen deployment plan like Verizon and its FTTP. But it will fail.
Bandwidth has become a cheap commodity. There's more bandwidth available and fewer buyers willing to buy it. Supply vs. demand....the numbers don't favor the ISPs.
It's funny that they're claiming supply/demand thing to justify their greed....claiming that there's more demand due to bandwidth hungry apps....simply not true.
Try as you might TW, Comcast and AT&T, you will not succeed long-term in gouging consumers.
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»www.Digium.com |
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expert007
join:2006-01-10
Buffalo, NY
| Spot On...
"Remember, if this was really about simply handling capacity, carriers could simply target the heaviest users -- pushing those 0.1% of users to a business class tier, or, like Comcast, implement a 250GB cap"
Exactly. I *know* that my usage has the potential to be more than anyone else's, and thus I'm alright with the understanding that I'm going to pay more.
(Wired & Wireless) |
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b10010011
Whats a Posting tag?
join:2004-09-07
Bellingham, WA | Too late, the cat has long since left the bag...
Right now Comcast is the best bang for the buck I can get.
But I would not hesitate to drop their service like a steaming turd if that changes |
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S_engineer
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL
 ·Comcast
1 edit | Well..
Some one needs to listen to the other types of investors. The ones that have pensions, 401k's, and annuities. We are basically half of the nation. And i'm sure I could speak for 90% of them when I say NO to metered billing. The American consumer is being nickeled and dimed to death. With the possibility of universal healthcare on the horizon coupled with the social security/medicare debt, we are truly on the verge of bankruptcy. Taking this route would ensure that people would continue to live beyond their means, and plunge the people that actually pay taxes further into debt. This Squid Moffet needs a reality check. Hes the type that barks about to many taxes but promotes ideas that will all but guarantee them. What a Splib!
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! |
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me1212
join:2008-11-20
Pleasant Hill, MO | Well put. |
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tony_wan_kenobe
@myatc.net
| Consumption Based Billing
As long as we have competition in a free market, competitors will find ways to attract consumers. If they want to increase revenues, they have to increase their market share. As soon as one competitor starts losing their share, they will resort to more competitive tactics, such as fixed price unlimited bandwidth.
People like AT&T and Verizon should know this. When they had early cell phone service, it was all by-the-minute charges. Period. Competition drove them to blocks of air time, and finally unlimited local calling and now unlimited long distance calling. That's what competition does.
Natural competition will prevent unit pricing schemes, whether it is minutes of airtime, or bits of data. But that is all predicated on natural competition.
The bigger threat is Congress. There is a perfect storm brewing in Washington where the Congress is faced with a reluctance to reduce spending, and the resulting drive to increase revenue (read that as taxes). Combine that with their recently demonstrated willingness to take over and regulate private industry, and the scenario is set for Congress to generate ever more revenue from the communications industry. It would be very plausible for them to institute a "per unit" communications tax that would form the basis of metered bandwidth. From there, the ISPs would find a way to add "special" fees based on the requirement to meter and collect taxes.
That's the bigger threat. |
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Bit
Premium
join:2009-02-19
00000
1 edit | Is my cancellation of a $50/mo metered service inevitable?
Absolutely. The day Cox actually enforces their caps on me is the day I cancel.
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POKE 65495,1 |
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DoubleK
Doublek
join:2003-03-04
Beloit, WI
clubs:
 ·AT&T Midwest
·Charter Pipeline
| Perspective
It is how we perceive broadband. Is it a necessity or a commodity open to our often times flawed capitalistic approach. If you owned stock or had retirement investments connected to a national broadband provider you would DEMAND to see growth and hope the company could realize as much profit as possible.
Therein lies the problem. Broadband is not a commodity and if OUR government is going to pump BILLIONS of OUR tax dollars into incentives to entice these companies as opposed to supporting municipal broadband efforts all will be lost with the momentum this administration has been able to gain. I find it incredible that internet alone costs roughly 25% - 50% of my monthly electrical and natural gas consumption for a family of 4. |
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JSRoman
Premium
join:2005-03-10
Callahan, FL
2 edits | reply to S_engineer
Re: Well..
You think pensions, 401k's and annuities don't want to see growth in their investments? They depend on these companies growing year over year and one way to do that is by metered billing. Yea it sucks but what else are these companies to do if one segment of their product line (video)might be destroyed by another one of their products(data services)?
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»www.seabee.navy.mil |
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S_engineer
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL
·Comcast
1 edit | said by JSRoman  :You think pensions, 401k's and annuities don't want to see growth in their investments? They depend on these companies growing year over year and one way to to that is by metered billing. Yea it sucks but what else are these companies to do if one segment of their product line (video)might be destroyed by another one of their products(data services)? the people I know don't want to spend a dollar to earn a nickel!
as far as services go, are you actually saying that there was no expectations of growth in the Internet?
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! |
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axiomatic
join:2006-08-23
Tomball, TX | Choice
Yeah, "choice" will win the day in areas that have choice.
I would drop a cable provider in an instant if they price themselves out of what most of us network engineers know to be a fair price.
You have been warned cable co's. |
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mlundin
join:2001-03-27
Lawrence, KS
·Sunflower Broadband
·Comcast
| Never going to happen.
Data isn't a commodity like natural gas, electricity, or water, so there's not inherent reason to implement metered billing other than "that they can", and that won't happen because there will always be some competitor who will say: "well, if you buy OUR service you get a flat rate." Sorry to disappoint. |
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nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
·Comcast
| reply to kapil
Re: Nope
said by kapil :... Try as you might TW, Comcast and AT&T, you will not succeed long-term in gouging consumers. Unfortunately, they will unless congress does something to stop them.
With the lack of competition, there is nothing to moderate price increases because customers have no other choice in a lot of cases. I can only get broadband thru comcast; if they decide to implement low caps and throttle and all that other stuff, my choice is grin and bear it or have no broadband. |
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mlundin
join:2001-03-27
Lawrence, KS
·Sunflower Broadband
·Comcast
| reply to Bit
Re: Is my cancellation of a $50/mo metered service inevitable?
said by Bit :Absolutely. The day Cox actually enforces their caps on me is the day I cancel. and THAT'S why it will never happen. |
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ernieJohnstn
join:2005-02-27
Lilburn, GA
| Competition
What is needed is a third competitor for whom capacity is not a limited resource, one that combines all our communications over an integrated Fixed and Wireless network. I'm working on it.
A reasonable cap is 5% of bandwidth per month, which would be much more than almost all users could consume. Especially if the network delivers 100 or 1000 MBps. |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| reply to kapil
Re: Nope
said by kapil :Try as you might TW, Comcast and AT&T, you will not succeed long-term in gouging consumers. Nope. They forget MS, Sony, Amazon, Google and Netflix among others are trying to make money off digital downloading and online video and caps hurt that. Do they think they can mess with those guys and get away with it? Doesn't Sony own A LOT of content? It would suck if they told all the cable companies they weren't allowed to show any of that content anymore now would it?
MS just announce 1080p movies and full game downloads for XBL. How are you going to get people to rent a 1080p movie when they have a 40 GB cap and $1 or more per GB overage. a 720p movie is about 6 GB so that makes a 1080p movie what 12-15 GB? XBOX 360 games run about 7-9 GB. How do you get people to buy games if they're going to pay an extra $8 for the game because of some cap?
Don't Google and Amazon own a lot of pipe? Did it ever occur to the cable guys at some point in the future it may be necessary to have access to that? Be funny if they were told NO. |
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oVrKil
@bankone.com
| They've made it very clear
"They've been clear -- they don't want to discourage the use of the [broadband] product, but they have be able to manage the increased use of bandwidth that goes with Web-based video."
Oh I'm afraid they made it very clear, they DO want to discourage video use over the internet as stated in the last part of the article
"As HD Internet video delivery truly explodes over the next decade, Moffett's client portfolio's soar as carriers directly monetize Internet video delivery down to the megabyte."
Meaning that the following services being bunked (as stated here »gigaom.com/2009/05/29/the-stream···t-yet/):
XBOX/Netflix
XBOX360
PS3
TiVo
Roku
VUDU
Apple TV
Blockbuster Mediapoint Player
Broadband-enabled TVs
Broadband-enabled Blu-ray Players
and any computer connected to the internet has the capability to view HD media from a variety of TV shows websites (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc...)
Why be dumb pipe when you can financially rape your customers for viewing the same media on your medium from a different source. So much for competition. So much for net neutrality. So much for the customer coming first. Long live corp greed |
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me1212
join:2008-11-20
Pleasant Hill, MO | reply to ernieJohnstn
Re: Competition
I agree competition is what we NEED. |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| reply to JSRoman
Re: Well..
said by JSRoman :You think pensions, 401k's and annuities don't want to see growth in their investments? They depend on these companies growing year over year and one way to do that is by metered billing. Yea it sucks but what else are these companies to do if one segment of their product line (video)might be destroyed by another one of their products(data services)? No they way to see it grow is by providing good service at reasonable pricing where you can KEEP customers. Sure I may be stuck with cable for internet but that doesn't mean I have to keep them for TV. Is losing $750 a year from me worth the few dollars it MAY make from the occasional overage which I am most likely NOT going to incur?
Losing $100 to make $1 is NOT good business sense and NOT a good way to boost anyone's 401k. I wouldn't invest in any company that has that mind set. It is doomed to fail. Instead of trying to stifle online video in order to keep a dying business model going why not EMBRACE it and learn to profit from it CORRECTLY. Are they going to be like the music industry which took over a decade to finally start to "get it"? How many TENS of BILLIONS of $ did the music industry lose because of their attitude? |
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JSRoman
Premium
join:2005-03-10
Callahan, FL
| reply to S_engineer
Apples and oranges. Of course companies expect internet growth but people shouldn't expect shareholders to all of a sudden sit on their hands and not expect growth from a company that provides data services. Let say sometime in the future everyone one decides to cancel their video services from their cable,satellite or telco provider and get their video services over the net. I'm 100% sure you will start seeing 5-10% yearly increases in prices for data services.
As long as you have private companies providing services their will be a demand for growth and that growth(increased revenue) usually comes in form of higher prices.
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»www.seabee.navy.mil |
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