 en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Why stop at very healthy profits? said by Karl Bode :
Many customers may be stupid, but they can apparently read an ISP's 10-K form, which shows that flat-rate billing provides broadband operators with very healthy profits.
If I was a CEO or business analyst for a company and saw the following:
1. Providing a 'premium' essentially unresticted service (in which customers are flocking to)
2. Need money to pay off all those fiber builds
3. Fact is that bandwidth is becoming a commodity
4. Investors ALWAYS want higher ROI
Wouldn't you implement billing by the byte as well ?
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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 morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | Short term gain over long term prosperity? I dunno. Seems like a bad idea. It will definitely breathe new life into muni broadband systems. |
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en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
1 edit | If they set their rates 'decently' enough, then its not a big deal... yet (eg. Comcast set to 250GB?), vs. TWC was to set as low as 10-40GB. I 'personally' don't like caps/bill by the byte, etc. However, as always, these companies will set a 'value' to the consumption, and what was speed is now being converted to consumption.
Instead of Cable/TV offering 'faster tier' if you bundle (30/1Mbps is standard here on TWC with boost), they'll be offering double your allowable consumption.
If you get a DVR, HD, sports package,etc. You can have unlimited consumption.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | reply to en102
said by en102:3. Fact is that bandwidth is becoming a commodity ...that becomes cheaper to provide every year. |
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 TrimlinePremium
join:2004-10-24
Windermere, FL
 ·voip.ms
·Callcentric
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to en102
said by en102: said by Karl Bode :
Many customers may be stupid, but they can apparently read an ISP's 10-K form, which shows that flat-rate billing provides broadband operators with very healthy profits.
Wouldn't you implement billing by the byte as well ? Looks good on paper, but as soon as you do, your customer base will go else where. That's the fallacy yet to be understood by the CEO.
I say let it fly, and let the chips fall where they may. Bet Microsoft or Google would LOVE to provide unlimited bandwidth. |
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| reply to funchords
It only becomes cheaper every year if you stop putting money into upgrading the infrastructure that provides the bandwidth.
After GPON, they're going to need 10GPON, then 100GPON. Those upgrades aren't free, and must be considered part of the bandwidth cost.
And that's not even including upgrading their backbone links to multiple 100Gbit connections to serve the 10GPON and 100GPON nodes.
The cost of bandwidth itself goes down (at a very slow pace recently) but the cost of upgrades to deliver more bandwidth to the end user does not go down, and is variable compared to bandwidth costs. |
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 MurdocPremium
join:2009-02-08
Manitowoc, WI
·Comcast
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to en102
said by en102: said by Karl Bode :
Many customers may be stupid, but they can apparently read an ISP's 10-K form, which shows that flat-rate billing provides broadband operators with very healthy profits.
If I was a CEO or business analyst for a company and saw the following: 1. Providing a 'premium' essentially unresticted service (in which customers are flocking to) 2. Need money to pay off all those fiber builds 3. Fact is that bandwidth is becoming a commodity 4. Investors ALWAYS want higher ROI Wouldn't you implement billing by the byte as well ? So bandwidth is gonna be traded and or invested on commodity market? I can see speculators driving that way up already! Where does bandwidth come from? The middle east? It can't be that scarce, or running out! Its just a greedy corporate money grab. |
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| reply to en102
For #1 - a premium service that people are flocking to because there are no caps. I'm in the process of starting online backups for our computers. Guess what? By the time I'm done, I'll have close to a TB of data this month across FIOS. 100% legal, legit, and needed.
If they cap it, I'm gone. I'll do with dial up if need be. |
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 aSicapplication specificPremium
join:2001-05-17
Wakulla, FL | reply to morbo
said by morbo:Short term gain over long term prosperity? I dunno. Seems like a bad idea. ... Isnt that what the federal government has been doing for the past few months? They've set quite an example to live up to. These pesky corporations are just following the leader.
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Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say. |
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en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | reply to Trimline
Ahh - but go where ? Telco ISP or Cable ISP... they're both out there for the bottom line.
There's nothing out there to stop Google or Microsoft from providing bandwidth. They could have gone into wireless on the 700MHz spectrum if they wanted to.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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 joetaxpayerI'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA | reply to en102
said by en102:If they set their rates 'decently' enough, then its not a big deal... yet (eg. Comcast set to 250GB?) You think? The comcast board is full of complaints about the meter, as well as the cap. Even though it's maybe .1% who will exceed this cap, the complaints go right down to the guy who knows he's only using 50GB/mo. |
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nitzanPremium,VIP
join:2008-02-27
kudos:2 | The guy who uses 50GB today - will use 500GB in a few years. With streaming HDTV and other forms of media shifting towards the internet, 250GB is going to look like nothing in no time.
Think about it like this:
Today's average consumption is 50GB, cap is 250GB.
In 2 years average consumption is 100GB, cap is still 250GB.
In 5 years average consumption is 500GB, cap is still 250GB so people get hit with bills twice the amount for "exceeding" the cap.
It's in essence a way for them to ensure today that in a few years they'll be able to hit a signficant amount of users with overage fees - without the negative publicity coming from per-byte billing, and without the regulatory headaches. In 5 years when the regulators come knocking on their doors they'll say "but we've been working like this for years!". It's sneaky, but that's what they're trying to do IMHO. Not a bad business plan at all, actually. |
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| reply to en102
I currently run a business and would never charge more because I could, the only way I charge more is if the product or service improves. I believe this may be where we need to focus our efforts instead of Net Neutrality, since this would affect the web even more at the present time, perhaps incorporate it into the bill and get it signed anyways.
I am a big fan of letting a consumer do what they wish with their hardware and connections and would love to see large companies do the same. What right do we as a company have to tell the end user that they can't play that game because their hardware can't handle it or that their connection will be bogged down? We can inform them that it may not function properly, but that is the extent we can do as a company.
Let the net be free! |
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| reply to morbo
"Short term gain over long term prosperity?"
Hey it worked REAL good the last 8 years of unfettered banking laws! Let's do it again!
(hmmm, secretly me thinks I better invest in dialup AOL stock) |
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joetaxpayerI'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA | reply to nitzan
said by nitzan:The guy who uses 50GB today - will use 500GB in a few years. With streaming HDTV and other forms of media shifting towards the internet, 250GB is going to look like nothing in no time. Absent caps, there are the top few (the .1%) who use more than the bottom 50%. I'd expect that once the meter is available, those top .1% are savvy enough to trade off whatever the heck they are doing with the important stuff they'd like to keep doing.
I agree that we should expect the cap to be lifted, on some semi-regular basis.
I find it curious that when we talk taxes, the top .1% are vilified, everyone wants to tax them 1000% if we could, yet the top .1% of bandwidth users are heroes. As a ~40GB/mo user, I'm subsidizing them as are 99% of us. Let them pay their way. |
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nitzanPremium,VIP
join:2008-02-27
kudos:2 | said by joetaxpayer:I agree that we should expect the cap to be lifted, on some semi-regular basis. Do you seriously think they're going to raise the cap on a regular basis? or raise it at all? again- this is an easy way for them to pave the way for future overage charges for average users.
I find it curious that when we talk taxes, the top .1% are vilified, everyone wants to tax them 1000% if we could Maybe YOU want to tax them 1000%. I think the top .1% should be paying exactly the same tax rates as you and me. They already pay millions (or more) in taxes as it is - and if you put too much tax burden on them they'll simply move their business elsewhere. You can't tax someone millions of dollars and expect them not to be able to creatively shift income around so it doesn't get taxed. For you and me it's not worth the trouble - for the upper .1% of taxpayers it very well will be if you tax them high enough. |
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