| Profit concerned "Most ISP meters are completely inaccurate and the ISPs aren't concerned about it."
They are only concerned when it is inaccurate in the customers favor. If it's in there favor, just means more profit. |
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 LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | said by cpsycho:"Most ISP meters are completely inaccurate and the ISPs aren't concerned about it."
They are only concerned when it is inaccurate in the customers favor. If it's in there favor, just means more profit.
Did you read the part in the story where the inaccuracies ARE in the customers favor. So your whole premise is invalid.
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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. |
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| Meters When I was a Wildblue customer, one of the main time-wasters was keeping an eye on the usage meter to avoid major throttling. There were a few unpublished quirks, such as it taking up to 24 hours for usage to update on the consumption graph, but I think on the most part it was accurate. I can't remember if you could see how much bandwidth you used on a day-to-day basis, but when you've only got 7.5GB to play with you mind your MB's.
This study also is only on landline-based internet. What about the accuracy of wireless usage? |
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Host:
Time Warner Intern..
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| This study also is only on landline-based internet. What about the accuracy of wireless usage?
»Study: Carriers Inaccurately Track Wireless Usage, Overbill |
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| Funny "Derails trust in the meter" ...when was trust in the meter instilled?
So, it under-reports usage by the customers and they get a "free pass" ...on some concept that should never have existed in the first place. Well, thanks, Mr. ISP person... your attitude makes me begin to think that you're not completely insane. (well, only sort of)
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"Face piles of trials with smiles; it riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave." |
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| It might also have something to do with who at the ISP actually cares about the meters. I'm willing to bet that, while upper management and the investors may care, the technical people probably see the whole thing as one huge waste of time, and some of them may actually hate the idea, since they know what a big ripoff it is. In a situation like that, it isn't surprising that the meters under-report, and no one but the suits have any interest in fixing them. |
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Host:
Time Warner Intern..
PC gaming GAMES
PC gaming Tech
| It's also a money thing. One AT&T insider told me there's a lot of hemming and hawing over spending enough to get the meters to work properly. They want the revenue from metered billing, but they don't want to spend the case required to ensure they really work right. They know regulators won't do anything, so it continues. |
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Reviews:
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| reply to cpsycho
Re: Profit concerned Not correct. If you have a contract with the ISP, and part of that contract includes variable charges, the method in which the variable charge is based must be disclosed including times. BTW, people say no contract, but technically if you have a service while you do not sign a term-defined contract, it is considered a month-to-month contract legally.
If the ISPs are charging or capping based upon usage and over-report that opens them up to fraud. Look at what is happening to Subway over their 11 inch foot-longers (in this case under-reporting but the same idea).
So if the meters under-report while that means they are inaccurate (likely due to cost to accurately report) that doesn't open them up to fraud.
If this study comes out, and proves over-reporting that ISP is now going to be in harms way.
The whole meter thing performs only two things:
1. Behavior modification - If there is a cap, people pay attention and if actions are punitive (slap on the wrist, throttle, your out) this will scare enough people to keep usage down and of course keep profits up.
2. Additional revenue stream - If you can charge people for usage (utility model) without lowering base pricing, this is icing on the cake.
The benefits of this are of course slower router upgrades or capacity upgrades, simply CapX outlay. Time Warner has managed to stay out of the meter game for now by jacking up modem fees--ancillary fees--while seemingly small can add $500-$1b to the bottom line every year. And of course due to "technology investment" that $20 modem sitting in your house lease fee will go up every year. |
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Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Time to regulate meters Just as it is done for other metered services:
- Water meter
- Gas meter
- Electricity
Similarly, many retailers fall under weights and measures:
- Gas station
- Grocery store (scales)
Why should these folks be able to just make up a method:
Eg. AT&T 'adding' their last mile ATM overhead to your billed data at an overhead of an extra 10%. |
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rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Do Overage Fees Affect Large Percentage? When metering was heralded as necessary to prevent the looming Internet meltdown, ISPs always claimed the data limits were generous enough that only a small portion (2% seems to stick in my mind) of customers would incur new fees.
If true, is it possible that there's little interest because the vast majority of us never reach a limit where we feel the pain? If so, the problem won't get fixed until a critical mass of customers are affected. Only then will enough noise will be generated that the meters will have to be regulated and proven accurate by ISPs and, just like gas pumps and supermarket scales, they'll have to be periodically certified. There will also have to be surprise checks to catch potential tampering between certifications cycles.
Unlike gas pumps and supermarket scales, regulators should be able to automate the certification process. Perhaps they could use a Nielsen-like approach where they distribute 10,000 "premises meters" to carefully selected HSI customers. Those customers then submit their ISP measurements which are then cross-checked with the on-premises results. As long as regulators periodically move the devices, it seems far-fetched to believe ISPs would invest in discovery and deception. |
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| reply to Karl Bode
Re: Funny Sooner or later, someone is going to get a big bill and, instead of going to the FCC, they're going to go to their state Attorney General and to the media, and this whole thing is going to blow up in the ISP's faces. The TV news will have a field day with a story like that, and some aspiring politician is going to want to make political hay by going after them with a vengeance. |
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| I'm sure that's why some ISPs turned to this firm in the first place so they had data suggesting their meters were accurate. Amusing that only 2 out of 7 could pass the test, and that's among the ISPs who could even be bothered to go to an external source to confirm meter accuracy in the first place.
But yeah, I agree. The liability check will eventually come due on this. |
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| reply to rradina
Re: Do Overage Fees Affect Large Percentage? Far fetched... Have you seen the lengths that companies will go through to make/save a buck.
You should look that the ridiculous hoops that Apple uses to avoid paying taxes.
Or ANYTHING the RIAA/MPAA does. |
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| reply to rradina
The charges have nothing to do with the cost of providing service so the whole concept is groundless. |
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| reply to en103
Re: Time to regulate meters That is not as easy as it sounds. W&M for the items you speak of are regulated under state law, and the internet is not so simple.
Theoretically they could meter at the users router (most accurate) but the regulations would be killer to enforce and likely vary from state to state and the way the political wind blows.
In my beautiful state W&M is an extension of the Dept of Agriculture, so imagine talking to the Ag guys about packets.
The cost for regulatory compliance would be enormous, so be careful what you wish for. |
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maubs
join:2010-02-26
Farmington, IL Reviews:
 ·AT&T Midwest
| reply to rradina
Re: Do Overage Fees Affect Large Percentage? I've been over the limit every month since it was implemented in my area (June 2012, I think). We're cord-cutters and watch streaming media from Netflix, Hulu, BBC and ITV, and I have a daughter who streams YouTube and Spotify. Our 150GB limit for a 6Mbps connection just isn't enough for our monthly needs. In summer months, we went over the 150GB limit and the 200GB 2nd limit.
Overall, this has increased my $70 per month AT&T DSL bill (including the required landline) to $80 or $90 per month. It's simply a deceptive price increase.
(edit) I might add that there is NO competition in my area for ISPs. No cable, and severely capped wireless or satellite aren't really options. |
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| Packet loss accounts for a great deal of bandwidth In Canada With all the oligopolies in Canada the infrastructure is among the worst in the world even worst than many third world countries for internet. It's sad but this is what it's like to be an internet subscriber in Canada. Yes a true dedicated line works if you go with an independent company but the cost in Canada still seems to be a lot higher than that in America. |
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| About Those Faulty Broadband Meters: None of Them Are in Use »www.multichannel.com/blogs/bit-r···-are-use |
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rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | reply to buzz_4_20
Re: Do Overage Fees Affect Large Percentage? As long as the device is passive (as in a traffic sniffing switch that sits between the ISP CPE and customer equipment) and it doesn't speak over the network but simply responds to a customer-initiated HTTP GET to provide it's status, I don't see how the ISP could detect the meter.
Of course if the reporting is then submitted by the customer using a specific regulator web site, the ISP could see who reports numbers. This issue is eliminated by having the meter provide a form that allows the ISP measurements to be entered and when a button is clicked, the meter and the client measurements are pushed into the client paste buffer as an encrypted XML document. The customer would then use HTTPS to login to a popular web mail site, paste the buffer in an e-mail and submit it to the regulators. Because millions use popular web mail sites and HTTPS hides the conversation, a breadcrumb trail cannot be discerned. To defeat this, the ISP would have to bribe their way to acquiring a trusted root certificate and alter their DNS to route web mail traffic through a special proxy. The proxy becomes the HTTPS endpoint for clients and enables them to monitor e-mail for bread crumbs. However, we're really far-fetched and to what end? |
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rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | reply to maubs
I have no doubt some are already feeling pain and are not the classic "file trader" (assumed pirate) scapegoats. However, since nothing is being done to address meter accuracy, I can only assume we have not reached a critical mass of those calling for meter regulation. |
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