hndrcks
Consider Alternatives
join:1999-11-15
Silver Spring, MD
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·RCN CABLE
| Maybe caps that aren't caps...
It seems to me the big $$ problem for the ISP is capacity during peak hours - perhaps if they developed a method of capping throughput during peak loads, then letting it go wide open again during the wee hours, it wouldn't hurt so bad. I noticed a "I download Linux" post farther up - and certainly, this is what broadband is for - but maybe not necessarily at 5:00 pm on a Friday afternoon.
So maybe the unlimited downloading is from, say, 1:00 am - 6:00 am, and the rest of the time is subject to a cap. I could live with that, assuming prices stayed stable and the upper limit during peak time wasn't set at some ridiculous value. |
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g3ddylee
join:2002-12-09
Lincoln Park, NJ
| said by hndrcks  :
It seems to me the big $$ problem for the ISP is capacity during peak hours - perhaps if they developed a method of capping throughput during peak loads, then letting it go wide open again during the wee hours, it wouldn't hurt so bad.
This is a good point, but then people would just try using it after the peak hour[s] ended, correct? |
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GerryB
join:2003-03-16
Manchester Township, NJ
| And that would be the point. Look at bandwidth use charts on almost any network, it is flatlined for 18 hours a day, and spikes to the total size of the pipe for ~8 hours. If the use was equal along all 24 hours, then the cost to the ISP for that bandwidth would be reduced by 1/3rd. |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| ...uh, it's called "time of day" pricing. American Telephone and Telegraph Long Lines Division pretty well perfected it in the 1920's. It's very effective at moving demand around, and in stimulating off-peak usage.
It is, in the end, such a naturally efficient mechanism that it is universally accepted in telecom. Only the lack of technology, stubbornness, and the undeniable (greed and testosterone fueled) desire of electric power utility executives to build new plants has kept it from being widely applied in the electric industry.
To the extent that Internet access capacity "upstream" of the last mile connection to the customer becomes "expensive" to provide, it is reasonable to expect pricing based on something other than that "last mile" capacity.
Calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! |
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