Test99Premium
join:2003-04-24
San Jose, CA
kudos:1 | In Favor Of By-The-Byte Pricing I'm very much in favor of by-the-byte pricing. Let me explain by an analogy.
In the early days in the BBR VOIP forum, nearly everyone wanted "unlimited" local and long distance calling. People had little tolerance for by-the-minute pricing. But over time, light users came to realize that "unlimited" plans forced them to subsidize heavy users. Now there's a significant number of people who prefer by-the-minute plans, and many VOIP providers offer both options.
I make all the calls I want using a by-the-minute plan for about one third of what I would pay for an "unlimited" plan. There's no way I would ever go back to an "unlimited" plan.
What if Internet providers offered a choice of "unlimited" and by-the-byte pricing? I'd be ecstatic if I could cut my broadband bill by two thirds, or better yet if I could choose maybe ten times the speed for the same price I'm paying now.
I have absolutely nothing against Bit Torrent. I just don't want to subsidize others' use of it.
For light users, what's not to like about by-the-byte pricing?
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 DotMac4Shill H8rPremium
join:2007-10-26
Huntington Beach, CA | Cable doesn't want pay by the byte 'cause they couldn't get the $45 minimum from users who only are using the service for surfing and POP3. If users are going to pay by the MB, they're going to expect a $10 connection fee like telephone, THEN the bandwidth charges.
But for the record I would support such a system. I consume hundreds of GB's per month and would certainly pay $150/mo for my usage. But I would only be so charitable if my neighbors using their service for only surfing and POP3 consuming MAYBE 2GB per month pay $10-$15. Otherwise it would just be more of the same ISP double-dipping. |
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 DHRacerFire Survivor
join:2000-10-10
Lake Arrowhead, CA
 ·Charter
 ·Verizon Online DSL
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It's like cell phone minutes, and yet nearly everyone has a cell phone.
You buy the minutes plan you think you'll need, and usually guess high until you get a feel for your usage and then drop the plan down, if needed.
Why wouldn't this work for internet??
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 gatorkramKaBOOM BabyPremium
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC
kudos:2 | I agree %100 with your analogy. As long as they give a fair amount up front, and a fair price for overage packages, and they get rid of all the filters, and throttling, I am all for it. |
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 dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | reply to Test99
said by Test99:For light users, what's not to like about by-the-byte pricing? Because it'll be priced to make sure the provider still gets their $50/month
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You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much Bandwidth |
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| reply to Test99
said by Test99:I'm very much in favor of by-the-byte pricing. Let me explain by an analogy. Now there's a significant number of people who prefer by-the-minute plans, and many VOIP providers offer both options. What if Internet providers offered a choice of "unlimited" and by-the-byte pricing? I'd be ecstatic if I could cut my broadband bill by two thirds, or better yet if I could choose maybe ten times the speed for the same price I'm paying now. I have absolutely nothing against Bit Torrent. I just don't want to subsidize others' use of it. For light users, what's not to like about by-the-byte pricing? I agree. Pay per byte is coming - no matter what some here say.
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DotMac4Shill H8rPremium
join:2007-10-26
Huntington Beach, CA
2 edits | Perhaps, but it would take a lot of major ISPs doing it at the same time. Otherwise it's all of them looking at each other seeing who is going to be the first to do it.
And likely, cable who would want to do it can't, because the telcos have the capacity and won't follow cable to bill by the MB.
And I say telcos have the capacity only in that SO FAR they haven't implemented the phantom caps or user cancellations that some of the cable operators have. I'm also not aware of Verizon or AT&T using aggressive traffic shaping. If they are, then they might follow suit should cable try it.
Widespread DOCSIS 3 deployments may make the entire cable capacity issue moot for at least the short term. |
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DotMac4Shill H8rPremium
join:2007-10-26
Huntington Beach, CA | reply to DHRacer
said by DHRacer:Why wouldn't this work for internet?? It easily would but the situation now is no one is doing it. It would be like all cellular companies offer virtually unlimited minutes for a price and one is looking to switch to bill by the minute. Unless the plan is aggressively, it's a tough sell. |
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| reply to DotMac4
exactly.. if ISP's offer a fair per-byte scheme then they will loose eventually since ratio between so called bandwidth hogs and "normal" web surfing user is really large.. Its the same reason the cable/dish doesnt want to go la-carte.. I can buy 200 channel for $100 which means 1 channel is $.50.. but even even if they increase channel pricing by 200% to $2 per channel.. I would just order max 15 channel and pay them only $30.. |
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scooper
join:2000-07-11
Youngsville, NC
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Time Warner Cable
·Embarq Now Centu..
| reply to DHRacer
Yep - I discovered I was using my cell phone so little that paying per minute to Virgin mobile made more sense than paying a monthly plan to Sprint - even though it is exactly the same network. Now, Instead of $30 -$40 per month, I usually average around $6-$7 per month. If I ever get back to where I'm spending $30 -$40 per month on Virgin Mobile - THEN it will be time to revisit going back to a monthly plan again. |
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redholm
join:2004-10-31
Sunnyvale, CA Reviews:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to Test99
I as you have meter voip but I am not so sure about the metered broadband.
1) I can measure my voip use. Not many users know how to measure their broadband usage. I would not trust the ISP to measure it correctly would you?
2) I can control my voip use. I can limit my calls, hang-up and block with caller id etc. How do you block ads, spam and other junk you do not want? I block email spam but that is after it reaches my server. I do not want to pay bandwidth for spam. Do we think ISP will do a good job of blocking spam?
I have lot of incoming port scan from by ISP network. I do not know if it is the ISP who scan me or their user who are try to hack my network but I do not want to pay for those bytes. Can you imagine the bill of a DoS attach?
3) Some ISP sent updates to the modem surprisingly often like every night why should I pay for that or Microsoft bloated updates. I do not want to pay for their lazy inefficient patch process.
Metered broadband service will only come when I can control it. I do not see enough control today.
I would sign up if all ads and virus and other junk was gone but that will unfortunately never happen. |
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 MattAll noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | reply to fAcEtIOUs
said by fAcEtIOUs:said by Test99:I'm very much in favor of by-the-byte pricing. Let me explain by an analogy. Now there's a significant number of people who prefer by-the-minute plans, and many VOIP providers offer both options. What if Internet providers offered a choice of "unlimited" and by-the-byte pricing? I'd be ecstatic if I could cut my broadband bill by two thirds, or better yet if I could choose maybe ten times the speed for the same price I'm paying now. I have absolutely nothing against Bit Torrent. I just don't want to subsidize others' use of it. For light users, what's not to like about by-the-byte pricing? I agree. Pay per byte is coming - no matter what some here say. Perhaps on the lower tiers, but there will always be an unlimited tier and I doubt it'll be more than what people currently pay.
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