rebus9
join:2002-03-26
Tampa Bay Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·Verizon FiOS
| reply to Lazlow
Re: All that money yet a 400 GB cap said by Lazlow:Which costs the ISPs more, 400 GB download via a 100Mbps line or a 5Mbps line (both during peak hours)? The 100Mbps download is likely to cost them 20X as much. The 5Mbps line can only increase the peak Mbps by 5Mbps, which is unlikely to significantly increase the aggregate peak Mbps(no significant increase in transit costs or hardware cost). That's only applicable when they're buying ports with a partial commit. That is not the case with ISPs of any decent size.
A Gig-E or 10Gig-E port at full commit costs them a fixed amount no matter if their utilization is 20% or 100%. The ISP isn't going to dramatically increase their transit because a new speed tier is introduced, until adoption crosses a particular threshold.
Why?
Because most people will consume about the same at 20 Mbps as they would 100 Mbps. (abusers and pirates not included) That CNN webpage or Netflix stream contains the same number of bytes either way.
I surf the same websites at 25 Mbps on my FIOS circuit as I did on my 7 Mbps Road Runner circuit. Just with FIOS, load times are shorter.
Said another way, on a faster connection, the bursts go higher but the duration is shorter. On a well-engineered network, a few users on faster connections aren't going to be noticed under normal use.
And let's not forget that the ISPs are charging a LOT more money for these shiny new 100 Mbps tiers, so they can AFFORD to properly add transit capacity.
Take a look at the bottom line. The big ISPs (cable, telco) are making a small fortune on their internet services. They only cry poor-mouth to keep the regulators off their backs. |
