dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
90

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

14 recommendations

maartena

Premium Member

If they want to be metered..... become a utility.

If they really want to meter your bandwidth, it should be priced as such. Utilities do not charge a $60 dollar "base charge", they charge you $0, at the most a few $ if you don't use any water, electricity or gas. If they really do want to meter, give me a $1 "basic" plan, a $3 "turbo" plan and a $5 "extreme" plan, and then meter everything above 5 GB. They'd stand to lose a lot of money of course, because MOST people really DON'T use an awful lot of data.

Also, ISP meters should be checked and sealed by a state commissioner. Everything that is slightly metered, is currently sealed by the state. Utility meters. Gas pumps. Scales in stores/post office. Everywhere where you pay "by the amount", the device and/or the way the correct amount is determined, is correctly sealed by a state official, guaranteeing that the device or pump used, is correct and accurate.

Also, I want to pay for the data that actually arrives at my house. I don't pay for gas that escaped from the main line somewhere, I don't pay for water from a leaky water main in my street, and I don't pay for electrons flying off the wires in the street as electricity gets lost along the transfer. No, I pay exactly what arrives at my house.

Internet metering is a crap shoot. Comcast will COUNT the lost packets that are lost between their facility and your house. So if there is a problem on your line which e.g. causes 20% packet loss on your line because the cable line near your house is damaged a bit, and has trouble keeping the connection, your data bill is going to be 20% higher during the period the line was not repaired.

Also, who pays for some taiwanese hacker that you just pwned in an online game, and is getting back to you by using his university line to bombard your ip address with data? (its not incredibly hard to get your ip address with a little social engineering and friending people on e.g. skype) You go to sleep, and the next morning it turns out someone is choking your line, and 30 GB has already been sent.....

And as the cable industry has admitted themselves: caps are not about capacity. They never were. And with technology implemented over the last few years, capacity has become less and less of an issue. It's all about their fear of internet video competition. They want to curb how much you can watch online, in fear of people cutting the cord.

Caps are all about money, nothing more. It's about ensuring the CEO can grab his 10 million dollar bonus, because he appeased the shareholders with more profit then projected by charging us users for data and signing up more people for cable TV instead. THAT is what it is all about, pure greed.
masterbinky
join:2011-01-06
Carlsbad, NM

2 recommendations

masterbinky

Member

I'm all for usage based billing if they become a utility or title 2 and are then limited to a double digit markup for the cost of transporting that data. I want to see the color leave their faces when they can't do a 5+ digit markup over the cost as they are doing in their 'overage' costs.

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

n2jtx to maartena

Member

to maartena
said by maartena:

...and I don't pay for electrons flying off the wires in the street as electricity gets lost along the transfer. No, I pay exactly what arrives at my house.

Actually you do. The utilities have a supply charge that factors in loss due to transmission line resistance, transformer inefficiency, etc. This came to light a few years ago on Long Island when it was revealed the power authority was overcharging for "lost" power. There is an industry standard calculation they were not using.

As for water and gas, I am sure there are shared charges for what is lost but the electricity one is known.
existenz
join:2014-02-12

existenz to masterbinky

Member

to masterbinky
i could see some ISPs eventually charge by GB _instead_ of by performance. You get max speed always but pay by GB. I don't agree with it but could see it happen with some.

I have Google Fiber so likely won't have either limit.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to maartena

Member

to maartena
"they charge you $0"

Not EPB. They charge stuff like fuel surge fees and a minimum usage fee among other little fees. If I turn the breaker off at the meter my bill is not $0.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt to maartena

Premium Member

to maartena
said by maartena:

If they really want to meter your bandwidth, it should be priced as such. Utilities do not charge a $60 dollar "base charge", they charge you $0, at the most a few $ if you don't use any water, electricity or gas. If they really do want to meter, give me a $1 "basic" plan, a $3 "turbo" plan and a $5 "extreme" plan, and then meter everything above 5 GB. They'd stand to lose a lot of money of course, because MOST people really DON'T use an awful lot of data.

Also, ISP meters should be checked and sealed by a state commissioner. Everything that is slightly metered, is currently sealed by the state. Utility meters. Gas pumps. Scales in stores/post office. Everywhere where you pay "by the amount", the device and/or the way the correct amount is determined, is correctly sealed by a state official, guaranteeing that the device or pump used, is correct and accurate.

If you REALLY want everyone to have to have "sealed, certifiable, gov't approved devices" at your home you'll find the base price plus "METER fee" to be a great deal more than you current pay NOW and while after all that the per unit of usage might be cheaper, do you really believe once they have a certifiable count, Gov't could resist adding a per unit fee or tax to it?
If you've every been to the gas station you know how quickly that modest little per unit tax adds up.
You aren't talking about a cheaper way to do it.

Eagles1221
join:2009-04-29
Vincentown, NJ

Eagles1221 to maartena

Member

to maartena
WHAT BS is that? my power and gas have a 25$ per month fee just to have service I think your example is flawed.
WhatNow
Premium Member
join:2009-05-06
Charlotte, NC

WhatNow to existenz

Premium Member

to existenz
Speed and usage are not the same thing and should be billed separately if they are going to bill. The speed may not matter in the future as equipment is upgraded to handle 100 meg to 1 gig as normal speeds. Having a fast connection does not always mean you use a lot of data it could be you don't want to wait for a big download but you don't download often. For other people it means they have a fast connection and download terabits of data every months.
chutz748
join:2014-05-11
Marcellus, NY

chutz748 to maartena

Member

to maartena
Have you ever tried to open your electric meter. Assuming they are not using digital meters, It is quite easy to open the meter and turn the dials back a bit, they are not sealed at all.

As for broadband limiting bandwidth. The issue with this is they only way to do this is from the gateway you connect to. If you bypass your local cable gateway, by changing your DNS and gateway servers to a VPN or TOR, then watch them try to meter that. You still need the basic service so you have a signal coming in, but beyond that, by using some creative routing you can bypass any meters they set up.

What we need to do is go back to a time where we had separate utilities and their was a choice.

You used to have separate, electric, water, gas, phone, tv, and
internet. Now the cable companies(Ie. Comcast) Want to control all of that.

Mark my words in 10 years you will have Comcast(Electric, gas, tv, phone, internet) all in one package for about $1000 a month.