JimF
join:2003-06-15
Allentown, PA
1 edit | Useless outside advice
It is amusing to hear an outside party tell a company that providing more free service is necessary for innovation. It sounds to me that someone wants to get something they don't otherwise deserve in the market place. Comcast, or any other company, can best run their own business. They don't need unsolicited advice from people wanting freebies. And government regulation to require "free" service will cost far more than letting the market place decide. That will really kill innovation. |
techygeek
join:2008-04-30
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Optimum Online
4 edits | metering may not be so bad, caps will hurt comcast I feel..
Its interesting, as I read this thread I wanted to address metering because it was another means to control excess bandwidth use much like caps. I do think caps will hurt Comcast badly, especially if they are up against Verizon's FIOS. Unlike AT&T's U-Verse, Verizon's FIOS has got the kind of system that can handle an abundance of internet bandwidth and people who post there say they basically can download and upload at whim with no argument about reaching any specific limit. If Comcast goes through with caps, it could cause customers to flock to Verizon like someone offering something away for free. On the other hand, I read that there are claims AT&T is throttling with U-Verse. I am not 100% sure but does that mean some form of cap or bandwidth control measure cause if so, they may not have to worry about AT&T, at least in that respect. Metering on the other hand treats everyone who takes a given internet package the same way.
I would like to say that I have read part of a news article about it being painfully disingenuous for any large, incumbent provider to argue they're not making enough money...
"With the plethora of new revenue streams ISPs are embracing on top of monthly triple-play income (advertising via webmail, BVAS, selling your clickstream data, DNS Redirection revenue, charging to get around spam filters, targeted behavioral advertising) it's painfully disingenuous for any large, incumbent provider to argue they're not making enough money to sufficiently upgrade their networks under the current flat-rate pricing model."
see this article for the full details..
»Comcast: Metered Billing Is Not The Answer
With that, I would like to say I feel much of these revenue streams are mix and match, probably for every stream from these I can find another cost a provider has that may offset it plus these arrangements come and go; voip is the only concern, iptv can be as well. Also, the idea of metering, apart from helping to contain excess use of bandwidth for any given set of users would not necessarily just be about squeezing out additonal voip or iptv competitors for the quick buck. Fact is, people can benefit when one carrier offers all the services as there may be some innovative cross-platform features. I am not sure how many or of what type but one thing that comes to mind is videoconferencing (talking to someone on the phone while they see you on tv, maybe while sharing a video, pictures of the family pix in pix). Ok, it can be done using the PC but I don't want to have to boot up my PC everytime I want to use features and it would be difficult, maybe even impractical to offer cross-platform features if your phone service came from another voip company. As indicated in elsewhere on another thread though i'm not sure which, metering does not wipe out voip or iptv companies in itself, it simply makes it that the customer has to decide if it still pays to stay with it.
Competition can be a good thing but an abundance of competition could be a bad thing. |
