how-to block ads
|
|
Uniqs:
119 |
Share Topic
 |
 |
|
|
 joetaxpayerI'M Here Till Thursday
join:2001-09-07
Sudbury, MA | The Meter? WSJ missed the larger point for many. Most people really don't know their usage. 250GB, 50GB, what does it matter unless there's a meter on line that one can view.
Comcast would have far fewer upset customers had ther put up the meter and announced that a cap would be implemented 2 months hence. 99.9% of their customers would have seen they were nowhere close to the cap. | |
DampierPhillip M Dampier
join:2003-03-23
Rochester, NY | said by joetaxpayer:WSJ missed the larger point for many. Most people really don't know their usage. 250GB, 50GB, what does it matter unless there's a meter on line that one can view. Comcast would have far fewer upset customers had ther put up the meter and announced that a cap would be implemented 2 months hence. 99.9% of their customers would have seen they were nowhere close to the cap. The problem with usage cap regimes is that once firmly in place, nothing assures you the industry doesn't start a limbo dance, gradually reducing those caps and exposing more people to overlimit fees and penalties. Bell Canada did that and also sells "overlimit insurance" to protect Canadians who do manage to go over the limit. Nice racket, there.
Comcast threw a 250GB cap on primarily as a response to the FCC telling them no on their network management of peer to peer traffic. In reality, Comcast customers do exceed that and still don't get called out by the company. They seem to only chase the top few offenders in each division. Comcast also will informally tell customers they can buy another residential account if they want to exceed 250GB. They are by no means the worst offenders of Internet Overcharging. Imagine if your ISP set your limit at 5 or 40GB (Frontier and Time Warner Cable, respectively, both not currently enforced or shelved)?
As consumption billing schemes like this become a revenue center, it's in the best interest of providers to increase the revenue they can earn from them, especially in markets without strong competition. That means they can tinker with them to force more people to pay higher prices.
--
Phillip M. Dampier
Editor, Stop the Cap!
»stopthecap.com | |
|
