Billed By The Byte > as long as there is no minimum....

as long as there is no minimum....

You know there would be a minimum billing rate, like for POTS. This wouldn't save anyone money. Maybe prices would come down a little to help sell the idea, but per/byte would hugely expand user's bills.
Look at the iPhone problems when folks don't realize it's communicating - multi-thousand dollar bills. Will ISPs really want to handle the irate users?

If we had true competition, I'd be all for some ISPs trying this per-byte method, as I predict the ISPs that don't so it would gain a huge following. BUT, since we have very little BB competition, once this is 'standard', I doubt anyone won't do it.

Ultimately, I'm against it until an ISP can absolutely guarantee me I won't be billed for any byte I don't specifically request. Don't like your neighbor? Send him a several hi-rez JPGs and listen to him scream when he gets his next ISP bill.

Way too many ways this would cause problems, although I do certainly see the point of pay for what you use (like most utilities).
KM

The people that would love this the most are the RIAA and MPAA. Kids, and adults, would curtail their piracy if they were truly paying for the product.
The thought of this however sets a very bad precedent!
--
Burn a tire, but make sure you buy that carbon offset!

reply to morbo
there would have to be a minimum, bandwidth isn't an ISP's only cost

reply to S_engineer
Regarding piracy -- it would certainly curtail it but there are two things different now than in my youth that make piracy much more pervasive:

1) It's quick and incredibly easy to rip a CD.
2) Everyone has high speed connections to share files.

For the moment, let's assume 2 becomes expensive. We still haven't addressed 1.

In my youth we made 8-track (yes, I had a Radio Shack Realistic 8-track recorder!) and later cassette tapes of each others albums and 45rpm hit singles. Recording took place in real time. If you wanted to copy someones album, it took an hour to make the copy. There were some tape-to-tape decks that would copy at faster speeds but a tape copy of an album contains significantly degraded fidelity. At the very least, a tape-to-tape copy doubles the degradation. Bottom line -- it was a pain in the ass to share music.

Today even without high speed Internet connections, the digital age makes it quick and easy to copy music. With a thumb drive friends can share hundreds of albums with minimal hassle. It's even easier if the music is already in MP3 format because there's no rip time. Practically instant, perfect copies can be made.

reply to plat2on1
they can factor it into the per byte cost.

was thinking about this for other sectors, like electricity and gas companies. why have a minimum service fee, if not to just screw customers out of a few more dollars? figure your costs per unit of measurement (killowat, etc.).

can't cable tv operators do this too? that would be nice. everyone has every channel, but you are charged only for the time you use it.

reply to plat2on1

reply to S_engineer

They wouldn't love it when all their online sales go "poof" because everything is now twice as expensive.