fefrie join:2012-08-17 Vancouver, BC |
fefrie
Member
2015-Jan-28 5:36 am
A new methodology for pricing rates to reduce 'peak congestion'said by Davesnothere:Actually, these days, Indie ISPs pay the incumbent ISP telecoms based upon momentary peak capacity demand (aka CBB, aka REAL circuit Bandwidth), but instead charge consumers based on GB per month (UBB), because they always had before, and that is the billing method which consumers already understand.
It is extremely difficult or impossible to specify a mathematical conversion factor between the two which actually works. This X 1000 However, I propose a different mathmatical model. If you could be told per minute what the actual cost of the *transmission* of a certain amount of data would be, you could figure out a rate schedule and act accordingly. It works just like electricity and peak pricing, because electricity is a bandwidth issue, not an amount issue either. If you charge more for peak rates, people will adjust their usage accordingly. Think of electricity this way. If the electric company offered you a rate plan where electricity use was billed at 200% actual cost during peak times from 8am to 10am and 6pm to 10pm, but electricity was free for all the other times, would you take that plan? You betcha I would! I'd invest in systems that could store the 'work' done by electricity in the off times and release them back during the peak times. I'd get massive water tanks heated with electricity during the off hours to be circulated by ground floor heating. I'd also get massive freezers to freeze water for refrigeration and for in house air conditioning. I'd invest in massive battery banks to store electricity for peak time usage. So how do we apply this to data. For example A person gets a specific amount of data. With teksavvy, it's 300gb/month. Sure, fine. Makes total sense. However there are congestion issues. So for peak periods from 5pm to 11pm, the premium will be 200% data rate. When you use 1gb of data in that time frame, it's counted as 2gb towards your cap. If you have a 10mb connection, that premium will be 160%, if you have 7.5 it will be 140%. During nominal periods, daytime for example the premium will be less at 50%, so if you're using it during those time frames, 1gb gets counted as 500mb. And of course from 2am to 8am the premium is 0% for all traffic. Now you might say. "I can't store data to use later, I stream all my videos and I want to watch it when I watch it." to which I would respond, well yeah, but your 50mbit connection is the one that's choking my 7.5mbit connection with high pings and lost packets. So if you're going on full tilt during peak periods, you should be paying for it like you would with peak electricity pricing. I think it works in practice, but of course people will scream 'it's too complicated'. |
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KISS principle applies.
Except in rare circumstances the peak is always during a specific period. Since that period is the only one that really matters, eliminating usage tracking outside of that period and reducing the monthly caps would have the same effect and remain simple. |
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fdsafdafdsgg to fefrie
Anon
2015-Jan-28 5:44 am
to fefrie
Okay but what about bit roaming? That's 160% of the cost of a North American bit right? |
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to fefrie
said by fefrie:to which I would respond, well yeah, but your 50mbit connection is the one that's choking my 7.5mbit connection with high pings and lost packets. And here is the real issue. Instead of coming up with a convoluted billing scheme, maybe we should address the real issue of over-selling the available bandwidth. Don't offer 50 mbit plans if you don't have to capacity to support the usage. In a properly configured network, with enough capacity, that 50 mbit user shouldn't affect your connection. Instead, companies over-sell to get more people online, at faster speeds, and then pit the customers against themselves claiming "that guy is using all your bandwidths!" |
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fefrie join:2012-08-17 Vancouver, BC |
to JMJimmy
said by JMJimmy:KISS principle applies.
Except in rare circumstances the peak is always during a specific period. Since that period is the only one that really matters, eliminating usage tracking outside of that period and reducing the monthly caps would have the same effect and remain simple. That is pretty simple. So what's a normal amount of usage around the peak times? 5gb? That's 5 pseudo 720p movies during that time frame? Sounds more than generous. So 5gbx30days=150PGB/month. Actually, that still sounds like a lot. Drop it to 100PGB and that sounds about fine. That's still about 3 movies a night EVERY night. Anywyas, it's all just a thought. |
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fefrie |
to Dial_a_Tech
said by Dial_a_Tech:said by fefrie:to which I would respond, well yeah, but your 50mbit connection is the one that's choking my 7.5mbit connection with high pings and lost packets. And here is the real issue. Instead of coming up with a convoluted billing scheme, maybe we should address the real issue of over-selling the available bandwidth. Don't offer 50 mbit plans if you don't have to capacity to support the usage. In a properly configured network, with enough capacity, that 50 mbit user shouldn't affect your connection. Instead, companies over-sell to get more people online, at faster speeds, and then pit the customers against themselves claiming "that guy is using all your bandwidths!" I sort of agree with you. But I do think that the higher priced connections are all underpriced a bit if you are to assume that people are going to max out that 25/50mbit connection. If people paid for the acual cost of running a pipe where everyone is maxing out the connections, we'd get an upgraded connection paid for pretty quickly. As it stands, yes it's an overselling. Supersizing of bandwidth plans really isn't that helpful. |
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jdoe71
Member
2015-Jan-28 6:16 am
The bottom line still is that the heavy users are getting a big subsidy from the light users, as I mentioned in another thread. Just something fundamentally wrong with the whole model of slurp more pay less. |
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to Dial_a_Tech
said by Dial_a_Tech:said by fefrie:to which I would respond, well yeah, but your 50mbit connection is the one that's choking my 7.5mbit connection with high pings and lost packets. And here is the real issue. Instead of coming up with a convoluted billing scheme, maybe we should address the real issue of over-selling the available bandwidth. Don't offer 50 mbit plans if you don't have to capacity to support the usage. In a properly configured network, with enough capacity, that 50 mbit user shouldn't affect your connection. Instead, companies over-sell to get more people online, at faster speeds, and then pit the customers against themselves claiming "that guy is using all your bandwidths!" That would be roughly $20+$10 per Mbps at current rates as just the cost to the IISP. You're talking $100 6Mbps connections. |
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SwichtoTSI to fefrie
Anon
2015-Jan-28 7:27 am
to fefrie
said by fefrie:for peak periods from 5pm to 11pm, the premium will be 200% data rate. When you use 1gb of data in that time frame, it's counted as 2gb towards your cap That sounds like a good idea, and relatively small dynamic company like TekSavvy can easily try it on even smaller part of their volunteer customers. It would encourage folks to schedule torrent downloads not when they come home from work, but outside of peak hours which can be defined 8 to 12 pm. Anyone can do it without impact on their total consumption, it just requires some habits adjustments, and can save serious money to both sides better devoted to improve service to customers in remote areas. At the same time 95% percentile payment would be grossly unfair to most and discourage overall internet usage. Instead ISPs should stop relying on delayed overusage info as part of their profit, and offer customers real time usage info as a tool to implement this idea. |
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to fefrie
said by fefrie:So for peak periods from 5pm to 11pm, the premium will be 200% data rate. When you use 1gb of data in that time frame, it's counted as 2gb towards your cap. That sounds horribly wrong. You should go the other way around: 100% weighing during peak-hours, 80% weighing when overall network capacity is under 90% of peak, 60% weighing when under 80%, 40% weighing below 70% load, 20% below 60% of peak, not counted below 50%. This way, subscribers do not need to know the details or worry about unexpected double-rate billing during peak hours: the worst they get is regular-rate billing with an automatic credit for less-than-peak-time use. |
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sbrook Mod join:2001-12-14 Ottawa |
to SwichtoTSI
How to price was a huge topic back when UBB was being discussed.
The reality is that the methods for paying for internet usage at any level are all poorly matched to the real costs of the service. And I'm not just talking about at a retail level, I'm also talking about at a transit level as well.
But the worst part is billing at a retail and wholesale level that will integrate with the transit billing. Certainly "per byte" billing that retail ISPs use is about as far from matching the percentile usage billing that transit providers use!
The transit method of billing is such that the ISPs don't have to buy more transit than they need most of the time but some additional transit is available if they need more than the allocated amount, but at considerably higher cost.
And it's not the number of bytes transferred that's the chargeable thing ... it's the number of bytes transferred at any single moment. In other words, little granny sending a little email to their grand daughter that can be the extra little bit that takes the ISP into the additional transit.
You can't really apply this method of billing to retail users though because of the impact of the extreme overselling of last mile service. Moreover it is just waay to hard for the average customer to understand.
So ISPs like TekSavvy have taken the approach that no matter what your speed, there are two classes of users "Light" and "Heavy" defined by their usage. The "per byte" charging that they apply when light users go over their allocation is really to ensure that users are on the right plan. They've modified it further recognizing that they are paying for unused transit in the overnight hours, so they can generally allow people to download unlimited. And they've modified it a bit further with ZtC.
A heavy user is MORE LIKELY to contribute to taking them into using the more expensive transit, where a light user is LESS LIKELY. But of course, as I've demonstrated with granny's email, that's not always the case, but at the same time, why should granny be made to pay more for one little email because she picked the wrong instant to hit "send" when 2 seconds later it might not have been a problem!
Peak period surcharging is certainly not a user friendly way of describing it. InvalidError certainly has a more user friendly way of doing it but again it's still way tooo complicated. |
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SimplePandaBSD Premium Member join:2003-09-22 Montreal, QC
1 recommendation |
to fefrie
I have a better idea: unlimited internet, all the time, for everyone, at a reasonable price.
What we have now in North America is a byproduct of bloated conglomerate companies protecting their non-Internet interests.
Discussions about how to best bow down to the broken system miss the point completely. |
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HiVolt Premium Member join:2000-12-28 Toronto, ON |
HiVolt
Premium Member
2015-Jan-28 11:19 am
said by SimplePanda:I have a better idea: unlimited internet, all the time, for everyone, at a reasonable price.
What we have now in North America is a byproduct of bloated conglomerate companies protecting their non-Internet interests.
Discussions about how to best bow down to the broken system miss the point completely. And I'm sure Teksavvy would love to offer that, as they used to before UBB/CBB was forced down their throats at very unreasonable rates. Before all they had to worry about is their own transit & peering as well as capacity to Bell (before they started offering wholesale cable). That was it. Now they have to pay a huge chunk to Bell for basically nothing. |
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JMJimmy
Member
2015-Jan-28 11:38 am
said by HiVolt:said by SimplePanda:I have a better idea: unlimited internet, all the time, for everyone, at a reasonable price.
What we have now in North America is a byproduct of bloated conglomerate companies protecting their non-Internet interests.
Discussions about how to best bow down to the broken system miss the point completely. And I'm sure Teksavvy would love to offer that, as they used to before UBB/CBB was forced down their throats at very unreasonable rates. Before all they had to worry about is their own transit & peering as well as capacity to Bell (before they started offering wholesale cable). That was it. Now they have to pay a huge chunk to Bell for basically nothing. UBB has long since been extracted from their throats, yet they still use it. |
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SwitchtoTSI to sbrook
Anon
2015-Jan-28 11:50 am
to sbrook
said by sbrook:The reality is that the methods for paying for internet usage at any level are all poorly matched to the real costs of the service. And it always will until structural changes are made: 1. Separate Cable infrastructure carrier from internet service providers. Same wholesale price for all ISPs. 2. Remove huge social inequalities. Limit max CEO pay & perks to 10 times of their average employee pay. It will drive money to new projects instead of offshore accounts. 3. Enforce antitrust law said by Revolution99 :In Europe we pay $8 Canadian for 100MBPS Or pay $15 for 1000MbpS
And wireless cell plan well unlimited internet unlimited calling to USA Canada Mexico and Europe for $6 can The speed is 24MBPs for first 5GB and capped after to 1MBPS
We need to wake oh and crush these telecoms and their massive profits check their earnings it's absurd |
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to fefrie
Someone said that 50mbps is too cheap now and should be more expensive?
I think you meant it should be cheaper than what it costs now. these rates we pay in Canada are too much compared to other countries.
Also why should someone that is paying for a 25mbps adjust their habits if they are paying for it?
Person A) pays for a 25/10 connection , and wants to watch netflix when he/she comes home from work which is usually prime time, since he/she is paying for a service they will use it
Person B) pays for a 6/1 connection with only 50Gb - that is what they pay, and that is what they get
Person A paid for a speed they want ( which most websites don't even deliver that speed) and their pipe or connection is meant for that speed
Person B is not offsetting for person A, as person B paid for a lower speed and low gb. |
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fefrie join:2012-08-17 Vancouver, BC |
to jdoe71
said by jdoe71:The bottom line still is that the heavy users are getting a big subsidy from the light users, as I mentioned in another thread. Just something fundamentally wrong with the whole model of slurp more pay less. Exactly. It's the same with car insurance. I barely drive, yet I pay the same in insurance rate. I don't get rewarded for driving less. |
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fefrie |
to InvalidError
said by InvalidError:said by fefrie:So for peak periods from 5pm to 11pm, the premium will be 200% data rate. When you use 1gb of data in that time frame, it's counted as 2gb towards your cap. That sounds horribly wrong. You should go the other way around: 100% weighing during peak-hours, 80% weighing when overall network capacity is under 90% of peak, 60% weighing when under 80%, 40% weighing below 70% load, 20% below 60% of peak, not counted below 50%. This way, subscribers do not need to know the details or worry about unexpected double-rate billing during peak hours: the worst they get is regular-rate billing with an automatic credit for less-than-peak-time use. There are many ways to implement or modify. Instead of 200% and getting a cap of 300gb, then keep it 100%, but drop the cap to 150gb |
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fefrie |
to LastDon
said by LastDon:Someone said that 50mbps is too cheap now and should be more expensive?
I think you meant it should be cheaper than what it costs now. these rates we pay in Canada are too much compared to other countries.
Also why should someone that is paying for a 25mbps adjust their habits if they are paying for it?
Person A) pays for a 25/10 connection , and wants to watch netflix when he/she comes home from work which is usually prime time, since he/she is paying for a service they will use it
Person B) pays for a 6/1 connection with only 50Gb - that is what they pay, and that is what they get
Person A paid for a speed they want ( which most websites don't even deliver that speed) and their pipe or connection is meant for that speed
Person B is not offsetting for person A, as person B paid for a lower speed and low gb. Person A pays less per gbps than Person B And gb's don't matter, it's rate. |
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to jdoe71
said by jdoe71:The bottom line still is that the heavy users are getting a big subsidy from the light users... *raises hand* I'm just quoting this to reemphasize the point. You're welcome, Angelo. |
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to fefrie
My points still stand
Person A) paid for a service Person B) paid for a lower service
What Person A does, does not bother Person B What Person B does, does not bother Person A
As each individual paid for their portion of speed/rate/gb they are paying for full access not 1/2 or whatever.
You can't tell a person when they come home from work, don't watch netflix or browse HD video on youtube because it is prime time..
that person will say. i paid for this service, I will use it.
if companies can't provide what each user pays they should not be in the business of providing this service.
If the company oversells and doesn't have the proper capacity, it doesn't matter if ur person a or b, u will feel the burden even if everyone was a light user. |
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fefrie join:2012-08-17 Vancouver, BC |
fefrie
Member
2015-Jan-29 6:35 am
said by LastDon:My points still stand
Person A) paid for a service Person B) paid for a lower service
What Person A does, does not bother Person B What Person B does, does not bother Person A
As each individual paid for their portion of speed/rate/gb they are paying for full access not 1/2 or whatever.
You can't tell a person when they come home from work, don't watch netflix or browse HD video on youtube because it is prime time..
that person will say. i paid for this service, I will use it.
if companies can't provide what each user pays they should not be in the business of providing this service.
If the company oversells and doesn't have the proper capacity, it doesn't matter if ur person a or b, u will feel the burden even if everyone was a light user. said by jdoe71:The bottom line still is that the heavy users are getting a big subsidy from the light users, as I mentioned in another thread. Just something fundamentally wrong with the whole model of slurp more pay less. |
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to fefrie
said by fefrie:There are many ways to implement or modify. Instead of 200% and getting a cap of 300gb, then keep it 100%, but drop the cap to 150gb To accomplish exactly the same thing without being too complicated... Instead of varying % and cap why not a pay as you go pricing scheme. For example: you pay a flat rate depending on your internet speed and then you pay per use. Price per gb will vary depending on the time-of-day (higher price during peak periods, lower price during daytime, etc...) |
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sbrook Mod join:2001-12-14 Ottawa |
to fefrie
There is a huge problem with the "I paid for the service, therefore I should get the service as described" .... that's not how networking works and in particular the internet.
The internet is a co-operative effort to provide connectivity between points on the internet. There are no guarantees that you'll make that connection and there are no guarantees about that speed.
There isn't enough connectivity available to support every user running at full speed at any instant. Just can't do it. The reality is that not all users use the network at the same time, so that connectivity can be "oversold". The cost to provide the ability to support every user running at full speed all the time would be astronomical.
Did you know that even good old POTS and Long Distance service is oversold? In any given telephone exchange there are only so many available connections between any two numbers - either local or long distance. Telcos have spent huge amounts of money doing the statistics that oversold these connections and the durations of calls to work out how many calls simultaneous calls they can support so as not to give an all circuits in use error.
All those calculations went really awry in the 80s and 90s with dial up network services ... first bbses and then services like compuserve and aol ... and later with the internet.
ISPs have similar broadband calculations, but they don't have the years of experience to know how to accurate allocate available connectivity and keep it affordable.
Adding more connectivity costs more money ... and having too much connectivity to support the "I paid for it, I'm gonna use it" folks costs big money, because when they AREN'T using it it's a wasted cost! This would make it so costly that affordable residential internet would be impossible.
So to have affordable internet, you've got a choice ... congestion or other means to limit peak usage Other means are far preferable to congestion. |
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SwitchtoTSI
Anon
2015-Jan-29 3:31 pm
said by sbrook:Adding more connectivity costs more money ... and having too much connectivity to support the "I paid for it, I'm gonna use it" folks costs big money, because when they AREN'T using it it's a wasted cost! This would make it so costly that affordable residential internet would be impossible. Actually, its more complex than that. First, a question of "reasonable price" is totally dependent on other rules the society imposes. Why in Western Europe 4 times lower price is considered "reasonable", the same with mobile prices? As mentioned above, enforcing antitrust laws and separating businesses in 2 camps - infrastructure and service - would deliver similar to Europe pricing. But when antitrust law is never enforced, arguments are useless. The same with gas prices - they stay solid now despite crude oil prices are twice lower. All extra profit is sent to offshore banks. How "free market economy" fits into this? Another issue is efficient infrastructure use. Indeed, don't waste money to create huge spare capacity. But what is the actual capacity now, and how it compares to today's consumption? It may be today's capacity in large cities well exceeds consumption, and the price hikes are aimed at excess profit - again for just a very few folks, since large ISP employees' salaries stay the same. So may be limiting execs pay to 10x max of workers pay would resolve "congestion problem" rather quickly, as there wouldn't be a motif to hike prices anymore? Indeed consumption should be regulated too, and regular folks motivated to save. But looking at larger pic, if the most consumers can access services only in the evening back from work, then metering it would hit entire economy grows pretty hard. No-one would benefit! How highway congestion problems at peak hours is addressed - by building new highways, not by punishing folks driving home from work. It should be a lot simpler with cable infrastructure. Why not dynamically repurpose heavily underutilized in the evening business lines for residential consumption? Its just more efficient resource usage, since the same ISPs now offer internet access to both sectors, so no extra capacity needed. |
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oh don't mention Europe in here, people will say it is population density etc etc.
but we all know that is b.s because population density in canada is around major areas and close to the border if one looks at maps etc. |
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sbrook Mod join:2001-12-14 Ottawa |
to SwitchtoTSI
Why is Europe different ? Because they are more accepting of congestion and slower peak time services than North Americans and even moreso, Canadians. We were spoiled with one of the best telephone services in the world ... shame that went down the toilet ... thanks Bell.
Canada's business laws are the Competition laws (we don't have "antitrust" laws like the US). They are there to prevent predatory pricing and significant anti-competitive behaviour. The laws in Canada aren't particularly strong because they are very subjective by the Competition Bureau. And on top of that, the competition bureau hands off issues pertaining to telecoms to the CRTC. The most recent case being that of Ben Klass and the telco's self preferential treatment with the Bell Mobile TV and similar things. The CRTC handled something that was technically in the scope of the Competition Bureau. The Competition Bureau by and large doesn't have sharp teeth and dish out more slaps on the wrist than punitive actions ... The CRTC has next to no teeth at all and their punishment is "don't do that ... oh and you've got 3 months to change as a favour" Then both agencies when they DO hand out sanctions don't stop the companies from taking it out on their customers. The usual result is "Regulatory Recovery Fees" ... $.50 per customer per month to pay this 10 million fine. Fines simply do not hurt the company.
Capacity has ALWAYS been lower than demand in the internet field, but it has expanded somewhat proportionally ... and it probably always will lag ... it's the nature of the business. More things come along every few months to use the internet and the amount of data being transferred is increasing.
Personally, I think replacing broadcast television with streaming is absolutely ridiculous at this time (it makes no sense to me) and I think that cloud computing is disasters waiting to happen the day people can't get connectivity to their data god knows where in the cloud ... But these things are driving speed, use and capacity up.
Many companies are now conducting online business 24/7 so the idea of repurposing isn't going to fly.
You can only build so many new highways. |
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sbrook |
to newSymp
Population density matters for some things but not others. It can be a lot cheaper to lay new cable out in the 'burbs than downtown because of the disruption caused by construction.
In terms of providing transit it is dependant on the number of subscribers in a given area. Too high and it gets costly, too low and it gets costly. |
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IF the EU can do it with cities much older than many canadian cities, and the way there infrastructures are built, and the chaos many EU cities face because of construction, the width of their roads etc.
IF they can deliver, and provide broadband like they do at the cost they do it at. we can clearly do it.
it should be less of an issue here, were in example ontario the major cities are all close together, are near the border etc etc etc. |
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JBondy to sbrook
Anon
2015-Jan-29 7:29 pm
to sbrook
said by sbrook:their punishment is "don't do that ... oh and you've got 3 months to change as a favour" In the US many ask why corporations are allowed unlimited campaign contributions, considering it a root cause of many society problems. By the same token its reasonable to ask, why Canadian Competition laws are so weak as you say, and on top aren't duly enforced? Is it also similar issue of who's paying for election campaigns? As to separating internet businesses into infrastructure and service, the blocks here are likely due to lobbing of influential personalities like late Ted Rogers and others, who indeed contributed a lot to both sectors. Since internet is essential service now like hydro, its time to look at making structural changes that would allow competition to flourish. said by sbrook:Many companies are now conducting online business 24/7 so the idea of repurposing isn't going to fly. That should be reflected in business internet rates. If you want guaranteed speeds 24/7 - pay more, if not - will get less in the evening. Consumers should not be the only target of price gouging. It doesn't serve any useful purpose. All economy segments should contribute to better internet experience. And consumers have all the rights to ask ISPs and regulators look toward better use of existing common infrastructure. |
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