 calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA | reply to karlmarx
Re: Metered bandwidth will never work karlmarx, you're ignoring the bottom line of consumer behavior. While there may be no incremental cost to move a particular packet, overall there is a "per packet" cost because if a full network experiences a doubling of demand, then the ISP must buy twice the pipe to support it.
(To some degree, capacity is "lumpy" in the sense that utility electric plants and water treatment plants are--small increments are near free, but sooner or later you hit that 101% of capacity when you have to incur the cost of acquiring the next step in capacity. It's not that the extra movie you download incurs a definite cost--it's that if your 10,000 neighbors also download an extra movie, there may be a capacity upgrade required by your ISP, and THAT is what costs.)
To put it another way, your "no incremental cost" argument would mean it's pointless for me to install an efficient light bulb as the 45 watt savings is so small as to be undetectable by the electric utility. In reality, however, if my neighbors and I ALL install efficient light bulbs, then the utility may be able to avoid the cost of a new level of capacity--and THAT is where the savings is. When you pay by the kWh for electricity, you're paying for the fixed cost of the plant as well as fuel--and with plant costs escalating wildly, it makes sense to roll that cost into a usage sensitive charge.
And clearly, this analysis applies only to SHARED capacity, where there are increasing capacity needs based on usage. No, this doesn't include the cost of the drop to your house, but it does include the cost of everything "upstream" of the first network hub, whether that is a telco CO or DSLAM, or a cable neighborhood box. It's when usage starts to cause (or threaten) congestion on these upstream facilities and capacity expansion is necessary.
And no, there's no possible justification for claiming that you are paying for a totally clear connection to every peering point--that would be prohibitively expensive in a residential market.
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
