There's Still No Evidence That Metered Billing Is Necessary > Bad horse, bad!

Bad horse, bad!

Since when does a business have to justify a price?

They are free to charge what the market will bear, that's what our capitalist system is all about. The Investors and owner of the company have every right to make the maximum possible profit possible, you don't like it, go start your own competitive company.

Now I agree, they are trying to create a nice story for average homeowner Joe and Jill to why the billing will change for there IP delivery, but that's got nothing to do with why the company wants to make a profit or if the should be allowed to make unlimited profits vs being a regulated utility

So Karl, the real story you might consider starting to drum beat non-stop is making IP delivery a regulated utility otherwise no amount of posts or supposed back lash of customers who will ditch there cable or fiber provider ( not a chance ) when we go metered will ever ever ever happen, we are all hooked on the internet crack pipe forever.

I look at it this way, I had to pay metered billing for my ISDN connection, so I know where we have come from and it is insanely cheap the bandwidth we have, even if it doubles in cost, its literally 1000 times faster than what I had in 1999 and paid close to 1000 month in ISDN charges for what I now get for 65 buck a month for symmetric 25/25mbs

And consumers are free to educate other consumers on what costs are associated with those prices so they know if they are getting ripped off.

reply to guppy_fish

reply to guppy_fish
Idealistically, I'm on your side; however, I don't believe that the customers have a great deal of control within this type of market. There aren't enough options available, and the competition is rather thin. A fast, reliable network connection is becoming too important for most people to do without, so the only real option we have that has any noticeable impact, which is to cancel our service, isn't likely to take root with the masses.

When the ISP's version of metered billing is put into play, it will provide them with an excellent tool to artificially adjust bandwidth capacity supply and demand by careful application of service plan pricing.

reply to guppy_fish
I understand your point about businesses not having to justify their price to consumers, HOWEVER, typically the market takes care of itself due to competition. In the realm of ISP's how many choices do you truly have?

Companies aren't supposed to be allowed to screw everybody over because there is no competition, that is called a monopoly and supposedly there are laws against them.

We are missing the bigger issue here. Since we all know that government is bought and paid for by lobbyists, until we change the way elected officials campaigns are financed and who can contribute, limit PAC's, etc., things will NEVER change. We will always have a government by and for the big corporations, not by and for the people.

Elected officials aren't interested in helping you and me, they are interested in getting elected or re-elected. Who pays for this? They always know if political candidate "A" doesn't take their bribes, err, "campaign contributions," that his/her opponent will be more than happy to.

reply to guppy_fish

reply to guppy_fish

I disagree. When the costs gets too high, the profit margin looks great and new players enter the mix. Just because currently I have a choice of one DSL, cable, FIOS, and wireless connections to my house doesn't mean I will always have only those.

With enough incentive more companies will enter the market and offer cheaper internet. Will they be as fast as the 15/2 line I have now? Don't know. When I started with DSL back in 1999, I had a 768/128 Telocity DSL line and 15/2 lines were unheard of. Technology, I love it and put my (broadband) faith in the neverending pace of it.

reply to guppy_fish

Considering how much lobbying these companies

reply to ScottMo

Re: Bad horse, bad!