said by viperpa33s:I don't understand why they don't offer TRUE metered billing if it's all about fairness? They say they should have a system like the electric company but don't apply it that way. They offer bread crumbs with packages that make people think they are getting a great deal with metered billing when they're not. Then they offer high bandwidth content hoping that people will go over there caps. The overage fees is going to bring in huge money for TWC.
That is very easily answered. You electrical company charges a base fee of only a FEW dollars including local taxes, fees etc.... If you don't use ANY electricity whatsoever, you will pay a bill somewhere along the lines of $3 to $8, depending on city, state, etc you are in.
If we take $5 as an average, and because the cable companies are greedy and you have an expensive modem that you rent, we'll just double that to $10.
Now lets charge per GB at $1 per Gb. In order to reach the same income level that they have now, based on a $45 average price (some people have lite, some people have premium), they will break even ONLY if everyone downloads 35 Gb, OR the total amount of GB's downloaded by all customers combined equals or exceeds the 35 Gb per customer mark.
The reality is that - and these are GUESSED numbers - 80% of customers probably download less then 20 Gb, 15% downloads less then 100 Gb, and 5% downloads more then 100 Gb.
If one downloads less then 20 Gb in this scenario, the monthly bill will never exceed $30, and more often then not is probably around the $20 mark, which would mean that TWC would lose a HUGE amount of money.
Also, all utilities are regulated by the local government of the county or city. THEY decide what the rate is going to be, or at least what the maximum can be. Prices are heavily regulated. If broadband needs to be a utility, then the local government is going to want their say as well.
Bottom Line: They would lose a lot of money if they are operating it as a utility, and I don't believe we'll see a lot of investing if that were to be the case.
So no thanks, let the market decide, not some bureaucrat.