CorydonCultivant son jardinPremium
join:2008-02-18
Denver, CO | Caps aren't necessarily bad... If we take Cisco’s traffic usage numbers for an average household of 200 Gbytes per month by 2012, then the monthly household bill will be $214.95 ($54.95 fixed with limit of 40 Gbytes plus $1 per Gybte above the limit). Today’s high-speed Internet access ARPU is around $42 per month; 5X today’s plans. On the other hand, if we take Comcast's 250 GB monthly cap, then the ARPU stays at $42.95, where it is today and has been for years.
Whether or not I oppose caps largely revolves around where the cutoff is. If the cutoff is only catching the top 0.1% of the user population, then I think they will reform bad behavior (which I define as large-scale copyright infringement or packrats downloading and hoarding data that they are highly unlikely to ever use) without stifling innovation and while preserving what might as well be "all-you-can-eat" for 99.9% of users.
The critical element of this is whether the caps rise as new bandwidth intensive applications become mainstream and ISPs improve their infrastructure. 250 GB is eminently reasonable today, but in five years probably will be more like a 40 GB cap is today.
Comcast's cap is fine in my book as long as it has reasonable escalators that prevent it from ever impacting the 99.9% of its customers it doesn't affect today. In other words (to make an analogy with taxation law-am I geeky or what?  ), the cap should never end up like the AMT.
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"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too." |
