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Billed by the Byte
Telstra modifies download restrictions
Australian broadband provider Telstra implemented a download measuring tool in 2002, and charged users for going over the alloted limits for their particular price plan (in turn pitching more expensive plans). Unfortunately that download meter ran into a technical problem late in the year resulting in a billing nightmare. Now Telstra has struck a deal exempting downloads from PlanetMirror (Australian File Planet equivalent) from Telstra's download limit, but users still are less than thrilled about the growing trend of having to pay by the byte. (also see related article from the Register)
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tscoccol
join:2002-08-03
New York, NY

tscoccol

Member

Must Suck To Live in Australia

Australia appears to be one of the few western countries that are more technologically backwards than the good ol' US of A.

I feel their pain. Particularly since the USA is heading towards that direction.
Urzumph
join:2002-11-06
Australia

Urzumph

Member

Re: Must Suck To Live in Australia

No, Telstra is another of Australia's running jokes - like the drop bear....

Seriously, after being unable to get better than 3/ks transfer rate out of their dialup, I'll never use them again...

If you want decent ISPs:
Froggy : Unlimited 56k for $20/mo
(20 Australian Dollar = 11.34580 US Dollar)

Gil : Unlimited Uncapped Cable $90/mo (I'm not sure where this is available, but it is in Brisbane / Ipswitch (sp lol)
(90 Australian Dollar = 51.05610 US Dollar)

PS: the DMCA isn't technologically backward?
[text was edited by author 2003-01-06 02:10:28]
MySpareBrain
join:2000-06-12
Houston, TX

MySpareBrain

Member

Is this greed?

This is only my opinion but charging by the byte is NOT the solution. I think ISP's are just getting greedy.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-03 17:44:26]

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

Re: Is this greed?

Maybe you'd like to pay the real price for a full dedicated T1 line?

Dirk Daring
join:2000-08-03
Ashburn, VA

Dirk Daring

Member

Re: Is this greed?

Yeah because obviously the current system has not worked for the past 10 years and ISPs are dropping like flies? Oh wait...
MySpareBrain
join:2000-06-12
Houston, TX

MySpareBrain to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
said by fifty nine:
Maybe you'd like to pay the real price for a full dedicated T1 line?
Hey maybe then I'd actually get my advertised speed?

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

Re: Is this greed?

quote:
Hey maybe then I'd actually get my advertised speed?
Absolutely, because your speeds are guaranteed. At my job we manage a few dozen circuits and we ALWAYS get the advertised speed or we get refunded for the days that we don't, which is once in a blue moon!
NaturlBrnklr
join:2002-03-19
My Place :)

NaturlBrnklr

Member

Re: Is this greed?

Heres what I don't get...You get an advertised speed and an advertised ALWAYS ON service, but the ISP complains when I decide to use my advertised speed with my always on service? Seriously, if you tell me Im connected 24/7 with say 500/124 why should I not be able to use my service at that speed 24/7?

You promise always on I want it always in use.

Speedy8
Premium Member
join:2002-08-22
Alliance, OH

Speedy8

Premium Member

Re: Is this greed?

Heh, makes it sounds like a convenience store that is open 24/7 but you can only shop there so often.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine to NaturlBrnklr

Member

to NaturlBrnklr
Maybe ISP's should start advertising the service that they are really selling. With metered bandwidth, it should be included in the user agreement (TOS, AUP) exactly how much bandwidth you can use, and what happens if you go over. That way you know up front exactly what you will be paying for. That sounds fair to me. But to demand that ISP's give away their bandwidth for next to nothing is simply insane.
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy

Member

Re: Is this greed?

==========================================================================
Maybe ISP's should start advertising the service that they are really selling. With metered bandwidth, it should be included in the user agreement (TOS, AUP) exactly how much bandwidth you can use, and what happens if you go over. That way you know up front exactly what you will be paying for. That sounds fair to me. But to demand that ISP's give away their bandwidth for next to nothing is simply insane.
===========================================================================

YES!!! EXCELLENT!!!
moonpuppy (banned)
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD

moonpuppy (banned) to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
You and I both know they would never be up front about this because they would never sign anyone up.

They advertised all you can eat, they made a mistake, and now want to chnage it but don't want to lose a lot of customers.

AOL made the same mistake and is still paying for it.
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy

Member

Re: Is this greed?

==============================================================
You and I both know they would never be up front about this because they would never sign anyone up.
==============================================================

We tell folks every week that the basic plan has 2GB included and $10.00 a GB after that and they sign up. We also deliver the speeds as advertised. If they're not getting them, we find out why and fix the problem. Sometimes it means working with the phone company on their behalf. If we don't deliver what we say, we go out of business. (They also pay the overage when the problem turns out to be a windows virus that goes wild on their network.)

People buy our service because they know what they are buying and they understand the value of what they are buying.
Nightwchtr
join:2001-09-10
Centreville, VA

Nightwchtr to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
Oh PLease, give away for nothing my @$$, you can get a T3 for as little as 2000.00 put about 100 people on that sucker at 50.00 a piece and be making 5000.00 a month with a 3000.00 profit. They are makeing more than enough money, plus they arent charged for usage unless there stupid enough to get a burstable, they are only charged for bandwith which is the same if you maxed it out or never used it. What it boils down it plain simple greed, PERIOD

keyboard5684
Sam
join:2001-08-01
Pittsburgh, PA

keyboard5684

Member

Re: Is this greed?

You are not including a lot of other costs involved to deliver you service. Employees to answer the phones, techs to take care of the networks, the costs of the networks themselves, etc. If you just bought a T3 for $2000 (where we are it is about $28,000 per month), and forced the person to run there own cable to the place the T3 is terminated, never had any support, and no other costs it may be semi-affordable to let someone who overuses there connection to go nuts. (Even in that scenario you still have the costs of equipment/router to terminate that T3, the costs of mail servers, web servers, switches, etc. and someone to take care of all that). I don't think it has anything to do with company greed, it has to do with companies trying to stay in business and a greedy internet user.
[text was edited by author 2003-01-06 19:00:13]
FlameBait
join:2001-07-18
Taft, CA

FlameBait to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
"But to demand that ISP's give away their bandwidth for next to nothing is simply insane."

How is charging 45 to 90 USD a month giving bandwidth away?
I am paying 55 a month for ADSL and 24.00 USD for dialup. Also how is defining "broadband" as anything faster than 33.6/56 or IDSN LOL. To me "broadband" starts at about 640/256. If it is slower than that I should be paying less. A 1 mbt connect should go for a max of about 75. I would feel good if my cost for my month to month ADSL connection for a sub 384/128 was about 15 bucks less. Would that not give the ISP's a reasonable return on their investment and overhead? I don't have a problem with my 24.00 USD dialup It always works when I need it and gives me features my ADSL provider seems to lack the vision to at least try and emulate. (this is called added value) My ADSL providers added features are a partnering with Yahoo LOL. I don't use YAHOO and I don't even want to LOL.

The real issue is that many ISPs' want to make all their capital investments back right now. Investment used to be made and paid for over a period of years, not months or weeks. This trend seems to accompany the transfer of profits from the share holder to CEO's and upper management and lemming like investing in the stock markets by individual investors. Meeting customer demands should be where your profit is made. Not by damaging your enterprise to meet the expectations stock speculations and/or over paying upper management and rewarding them with huge stock options.
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy

Member

Re: Is this greed?


Apropos handle.

BTW, which ISP do you work for? You seem pretty knowledgeable about how we are ripping people off.
medici
join:2001-02-22
Shohola, PA

medici to FlameBait

Member

to FlameBait
Broadband has nothing to do with SPEED. It has everything to do with electrical signalling. Broadband only means that you can transmit multiple carrier frequencies across a single cable pair (coax is one pair, a standard phone line is one pair).

Marketing makes the average person believe that broadband is the technology that brings the speed. However, broadband just makes getting the bandwidth to you less expensive, because it provides a way to carry this extra bandwidth over existing cables.

murdok6100
Avatar. Get It, Avatar?
join:2002-06-20

murdok6100

Member

Re: Is this greed?

said by medici:
Broadband has nothing to do with SPEED. It has everything to do with electrical signalling. Broadband only means that you can transmit multiple carrier frequencies across a single cable pair (coax is one pair, a standard phone line is one pair).

Marketing makes the average person believe that broadband is the technology that brings the speed. However, broadband just makes getting the bandwidth to you less expensive, because it provides a way to carry this extra bandwidth over existing cables.
Im sorry, now im confused.

"because it provides a way to carry this extra bandwidth over existing cables"

Does that or does that not make more data available to me at any given point in time?

Does that not convert to "SPEED"?

I thought that more data at a time means more speed.

murdok610

ender78
join:2002-10-17
Mississauga, ON

ender78 to NaturlBrnklr

Member

to NaturlBrnklr
said by NaturlBrnklr:
Heres what I don't get...You get an advertised speed and an advertised ALWAYS ON service, but the ISP complains when I decide to use my advertised speed with my always on service? Seriously, if you tell me Im connected 24/7 with say 500/124 why should I not be able to use my service at that speed 24/7? You promise always on I want it always in use.
The residential business model for providing Internet access is heavily based on oversubscription. The fee you pay is based on the assumption that you will only be using your connection at its maximum for a small percentage of the time. If you want 24/7 acess you must pay for it at the commercial rate (while still oversubcribed, has guarantees). Since commercial services come with SLA's and or guarantees, there is less room for the ISP to oversubcribe. This guarantee that differentiaties residential and commercial services from a technical standpoint.

frankenfeet
934 is 10-8
Premium Member
join:2001-10-14
Smiths Grove, KY

frankenfeet

Premium Member

Re: Is this greed?

quote:
The fee you pay is based on the assumption that you will only be using your connection at its maximum for a small percentage of the time.
If this is the case then cable/DSL companies should stop advertising "Always on". When they promise this and then want to cut you off for using your connection all the time. To me thats false advertising.
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy

Member

Re: Is this greed?

quote:

If this is the case then cable/DSL companies should stop advertising "Always on". When they promise this and then want to cut you off for using your connection all the time. To me thats false advertising.
It *IS* always on. In contrast with traditional analog dialup. And they have never said that you cannot use it all the time, what they are whining about is that people are moving tons of data.

I do agree with what you are implying about vague advertising, but then again, it is not a long term contract. If you don't like how the product you are buying has changed refuse to reward their slimy business practice. Stop giving them money.

They underestimated consumer usage and they are getting burned. There choice is to 1) piss of 2% of their customers or 2) go bankrupt.

(I'd go with door number 1 Bob)

ATF_Howie
join:2003-01-05
Whitney Point, NY

ATF_Howie

Member

Re: Is this greed?

Hi Peeps..=)

I'm a noob to the forum. Just wanted to add my 2 cents.
I have to agree with Sherpaboy bout the * IS * part of being always on. I spend at least 8 to 10 hours a day online ( if not more ) and I have never been booted or lost service for no specific reason. If anyone was losing on this deal...I'd say I'd have the bigger piece of the cake when it was all over..=) I know the majority that have cable are no where's near as fortunate as I am. Regarding
to location VS subscribers...=) Brand new line + new hub(2 miles away) - the hillbillies in the neighborhood thats never even seen a PC = 18ms from central NY to CA So......i guess I have no complaints =)
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy to MySpareBrain

Member

to MySpareBrain
=========================================================================
Hey maybe then I'd actually get my advertised speed?
=========================================================================

That is an excellent point. I have been saying that all along. However, people are unwilling to pay for the full speed, so ISP must over subscribe and sell crappy service. Once the service is over subscribed you will rarely get the advertised speed.

If people were willing to pay for it, you could even get the advertised speed over DSL.

alex4life
Alex4life
Premium Member
join:2001-06-22
Delta, BC

alex4life to fifty nine

Premium Member

to fifty nine
said by fifty nine:
Maybe you'd like to pay the real price for a full dedicated T1 line?
No thanks, I'd rather use the speed advertised with my residential Cable plan to it's full capacity, and pay a lot less. That is what's supposed to happen with innovation, right? Otherwise computers would still cost a fortune...

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine

Member

Re: Is this greed?

Look carefully in your user agreement, you should see somewhere that "speeds are not always guaranteed".

But yours may be different, after all, you're with a different ISP, and in a completely different country EH?
[text was edited by author 2003-01-04 12:45:23]
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy to alex4life

Member

to alex4life
================================================================
No thanks, I'd rather use the speed advertised with my residential Cable plan to it's full capacity, and pay a lot less. That is what's supposed to happen with innovation, right? Otherwise computers would still cost a fortune...
================================================================

Innovation and competition *HAVE* caused the prices to come down. A few years ago a T1 would cost you $5000.00 a month. Today you can get a *good* unlimited one for about $1500.00 a month (unless of course it is a zero mile T1 then the price can go even lower). My ISP will sell you an truly unlimited 1.5MB DSL for about $750.00 a month.

Of course who really needs a truly unlimited 1.5MB DSL, if you really need that much data it must be mission critical and then I would recommend a T1.

However, if you only need about 30GB a month, the metered offering comes out to about $450.00 a month.

To me it would seem that innovation has brought the price of broadband waaaaay down.
youngmoore
join:2001-03-16
Marietta, GA

youngmoore

Member

Re: Is this greed?

1500!! man what world do you live in?? I can get a full T1, that includes data, voice and 2000 mins LD for 525 a month including local loop. Or I can get for full T1 for just data for 500. What ever ISP you using or working for needs a wake up call. Hell I can get a DS3 for 4500 including local loop. All of these are unlimited "IE no caps".

ym
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy

Member

Re: Is this greed?

===============================================================
1500!! man what world do you live in??
===============================================================

The real world. Not the fantasy world of $30.00 unlimited T1's that never have a problem.

===============================================================
I can get a full T1, that includes data, voice and 2000 mins LD for 525 a month including local loop.
===============================================================

That's starting to sound like a fractional T1 to me.

===============================================================
Or I can get for full T1 for just data for 500.
===============================================================

Not likely. If it is a 0 mile T1 you might get close, but your 95th percentile is probably between 768 and 1024.

I order T1's from Qwest, Verizon, ELI (those are Telco's) and others on a semi-regular basis. Loop charges are based on the distance between the CO serving each end. The MRC (the Monthly recurring Charge) for the loop usually fall somewhere between $400.00 and $600.00. This does not include the bandwidth, which we sell for $800.00 if they want the whole thing.

Well informed folks don't have a problem buying a T1 from us. Cheap folks shop at the K-Mart ISP's for their T1's.

===============================================================
What ever ISP you using or working for needs a wake up call. Hell I can get a DS3 for 4500 including local loop.
===============================================================

Actually, we have a reputation for being one of the more clueful ISP's in the area. We are researching this stuff all the time, and just signed new contract's for our backbones, which are DS3's so I'm pretty current. The low down dirtiest DS3 pricing we were offered was closer to 7 grand, and that didn't include the local loop. However this was one of those teetering backbones who we didn't want to get tangled up with.

===============================================================
All of these are unlimited "IE no caps".
===============================================================

uuuuhh.... Thanks....

jwvo
join:2001-07-27
Seattle, WA

jwvo

Member

Re: Is this greed?

the only time i have seen prices as low as this guy talks about is where they are via ethernet...

even then though the prices for *good* bandwidth is about 200/month per Mbit/sec.

The provider i work for has several 100 Mbit/sec connections this way.

John
youngmoore
join:2001-03-16
Marietta, GA

youngmoore to sherpaboy

Member

to sherpaboy
That’s pretty extreme pricing, think what you will but those are the prices here in the south. 0 mile T1 is around 300 at a colo. Here are some of the providers that we use sense you don't believe me. Cbeyond also offers a bonded 3meg up and down for 1500 "including" local loop" So I'm guessing that the telco's out in your area are way over charging. But then again one of them is Quest you said and that doesn't really surprise me.

»megapath.net/
»cbeyond.com/

And you can find more companies on our very own DSL-reports that offer the same here
»ISPs

ym
Angrychair
join:2000-09-20
Jacksonville, FL

Angrychair

Member

Re: Is this greed?

I have to agree with youngmoore. I don't know what bandwidth is being gouged for up in "New Yawk", "Sattle", or whatever place you yanks are talking about, but I recently setup a local network behind a fractional T1, and went through all the paperwork for the T1 as I was looking for IP setup info. The cost on the 256kbps connect was less than $300 including loop charge, with other options clearly printed. Full 1.5 would be less than $600, including the loop charge.

I know prices can get outrageous in some parts of the country, but I really had no idea you people in the northwest were getting the screws put to you so tightly.
sherpaboy
join:2001-07-06
Seattle, WA

sherpaboy to youngmoore

Member

to youngmoore
Why would you want a T1 at a colo? Makes no sense. They might be talking about 1.5 megabits of bandwidth. OK, sure. That's $200.00 a megabit. That's a good price, but it's not a T1. You are on site buying bandwidth.

I went out to megapath here is what I have found....
quote:

Low Priced – Due to more efficient use of technology, MegaPath can now offer T1s for significantly lower prices than phone companies have charged before. A full T1 is only $699.95 including local loop compared to over $1000 plus local loop offered by other companies. (T1 price may be higher in some areas)
It seems that the megapath engineers are smarter than other telco engineers because they now have *more efficient use of technology* ... oooooooooo

I like this part...
quote:

(T1 price may be higher in some areas)

Does their special technology not work in all areas? My guess is that the cost is higher if the local loop is not 0 miles.

Anybody else out there have a Megapath T1? Are the CO's different on each end? If yes did it cost more than $700.00? Can you push 1.5 for 36 hours? How has the uptime been? Is Megapath multi-homed in your area?

There is a downside to buying $700.00 T1's. If the company is not making money on it, they probably cannot support the customer.
medici
join:2001-02-22
Shohola, PA

medici to fifty nine

Member

to fifty nine
said by fifty nine:
Maybe you'd like to pay the real price for a full dedicated T1 line?
About $300/month for the circuit, and around 700/month for the Internet access (this is AT&T pricing, lower tier providers are cheaper). For this you'll get 100% pure and unfiltered Internet traffic, no restrictions on servers, no quotas on throughput, no proxies. You'll also get a Service Level Agreement that tells you what to expect in terms of up-time, repair time, support response, etc, with guarantees and credits if the SLA isn't met. Run full 1.54mbps (UP and down) every second of every day of the year, and never hear a complaint. Get 62 real IP addresses to setup as many mail servers, web servers, ftp servers, etc as you like (the only restrictions are against illegal activities, including copyright violation, and SPAM). Do VoIP without having your conversation go to hell when the neighbor's kid starts sucking-down 500MB of MP3's.

Get 20 of your neighbors to kick in, using 802.11b for the infrastructure, and you come out as follows:

T1 circuit (local loop) $300
1.544mbps Internet Access $700
Taxes & Fees 70
-------
$1070 monthly
Split 20 ways 53.50 each, per month

Installation $1000 (often waived)
Four 802.11B Access Points $400 (central location)
One Cisco 1720 Router FW+ $1800 (with SmartNet)
19 802.11B Access Points $1900 (one per neighbor)
19 Broadband Routers $1900 (one per neighbor)
Parts f/19 Antennas $1900

Total Startup costs: $8900
Split between 20 People $ 445 each
Amortize over 2 years $ 18.55 each, per month

TOTAL COSTS: $72.05 per household

With only 20 people sharing the T1, you are going to get at least 10X the average performance of ANY xDSL or Cable connection. The tricky part is finding 20 neighbors willing to split the bill who are line-of-sight and within 10 miles of your home. Hell, for full T1 access, you can probably find 9 other people to split the bill and front their share of the startup costs: that's just over $100 each!

So, maybe you can't afford $1K/month for your OWN T1, but can you afford $72/month for a T1 you share with 20 people you know, instead of 200+ people you'll never know?

The company I work for does an AT&T T1 package with a Cisco 1720 Router for around $1300/month. Unfortunately, I live in a very rural area, and there's only 4 houses within line-of-sight, otherwise I'd be doing this myself.
rdeluca
Premium Member
join:2003-01-04
Redmond, WA

rdeluca

Premium Member

Re: Is this greed?

I would LOVE to force the bandwidth hogs of the world to subscribe to this shared T1 model amongst themselves. Your example just proves that for $75/month, you could get 79Kbps guaranteed - if everyone was online and downloading files simultaneously. Even if only 4-5 people out of the 20 were downloading, you'd end up in the 300-400Kbps range. This makes broadband look like a bargain.

As with residential broadband, sharing a T1 only works well if people are using reasonable amounts of bandwidth. Those people willing to pay $75 for a 1/20th stake in a T1 are likely to use it extensively. If you can find 19 neighbors willing to pay $75/month to subsidize your bandwidth usage without using the connection heavily themselves, then more power to you.

What if one of the neighbors decided to start using their "always on" connection 24/7 to download movies? Would you start charging them more? How would you limit their usage? All of a sudden, you start having the same problems the ISPs do. Bandwidth isn't free. In the unlimited access model, heavy bandwidth users are getting a free ride courtesy of the light bandwidth users - plain and simple.
etaadmin
join:2002-01-17
united state

etaadmin

Member

Discounts for ....

I wonder if telstra is going to give their customers discounts for unwanted spam-mail and popup ads?

This is getting ridiculous we are paying more and more for less and less. These service companies are a con-artist's dream come true.

wallyghs
Who Needs Sanity?
join:2001-09-13
Fairborn, OH

wallyghs

Member

:-(

I would jump ship as soon as my ISP began charging by the byte. I would also want my money back for every advertisement, piece of spam mail, etc. that I received. If this becomes widespread graphic websites may even revert back to plain text with high compression to gain tight pocketed users. This is just a stupid idea and i hope Telstra management loses their shirts on it.

••••••••

asdfdfdf
@xtraport.net

asdfdfdf

Anon

Insane

According to the register article

3gB for 55 US$
ballooning to
224 US$ for 5gB!

.084 US per MB! yes that's per Megabyte

I can't fathom why ANYONE WOULDN'T tell them to shove their service up their asses.

I'm just dumbfounded by this, I truly am and I can't find words for it. It just makes me want to spit.

•••••••••

US_1st_Cav
M1 Abrams Tanker
Premium Member
join:2002-10-15
Head-end

US_1st_Cav

Premium Member

Ouch!

All i have to say is, Ouch!I'd hate to be billed by the byte.


superht1
join:2001-02-22
Kennesaw, GA

superht1

Member

Re: Ouch!

In the old day of online service namely prodigy, aol, compuserve it was like that!!! australia is just behind the times of technology...

Ken Sohryu
Darkest Days
join:2001-01-07
Chicago, IL

Ken Sohryu

Member

Re: Ouch!

said by superht1:
In the old day of online service namely prodigy, aol, compuserve it was like that!!! australia is just behind the times of technology...
I believe they charged by the hour, not by the amount of data you sent and received. With 14.4 and 28.8 modems, which were the norm back then, such a business model wouldn't have been very profitable.

alex4life
Alex4life
Premium Member
join:2001-06-22
Delta, BC

alex4life

Premium Member

Meh...

I've been "billed by the byte" as you guys are saying since...2000, I guess, when my family first got Cable. Of course, I live in Canada and my cable co is just a small local cable co, so they only allow us to transfer 5 gigs download a month, and 1 gig upload.

It's not so bad. I don't usually go over, but that's just me. Frankly, I don't think you could ever surf your way over the limit. Downloading, sure. But you just schedule it a bit. P2P? Well, you had better turn off the option to share all your files.

Sure it sounds like it sucks...until you realize that my parents only pay $23 USD ($35 CDN) a month for it. I believe that falls under the price for AOL dial-up.

Since I don't go over the limits, I'm happy. But I would like to see them raised to 10/5 anyways, just because I might like to use more in the future.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

DSLTech5
join:2000-12-30
San Jose, CA

DSLTech5

Member

They cant have their cake and eat it too.

ISPs need to decide what they want to charge and how. If we're going to move to metered, at least be fair and do like the utilities do: FLAT LOW rate, then metered on top. Then they need to allow a base bandwidth for necessities, like email (this IS after all provided by the ISP right? They shouldnt charge extra simply because you need to move it from their servers to your PC, no matter how big the emails are.), etc.

I really don't see how pay-per-byte can work. It is possible, I suppose, but the catch is that the first company to implement it will lose customers. So, considering that, I assume that the first company that will implement it will be in an area where it has a monopoly, that way their customers can just deal with it.

Somewhere along the road we need to get back to what the internet is all about. Not about phone companies, cable companies, wireless providers and all that crap. Its all about creating a living community and we need to make it work somehow. I know for sure that most ISPs that provide DSL arent really making money... it should be in the Government's interest to invest in these services in order to allow continued growth.

With today's lifestyles focussing on individuiality and independence and capitalism, one place we're lacking in is.. where do we all come together? How do we share information as consumers, as citizens, or special interest groups? Well right now the internet is the backbone for many of these groups and we can't allow it to become inconvenient for the newbs to join up.
The Internet can be the vehicle that empowers the people so we have to fight hard to keep control of it and not let huge companies monopolize and define how and when we use it, and raise prices to the point that its no longer affordable.

OH crap I'm rambling again..

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Reasonable
@cofs.net

Reasonable

Anon

I might not like it, but it does have some merit.

A lot of people out there really expect the world for their 50-60 dollars a month their DSL costs. Some think that since they have 7X24 internet accesses they should be able to download at full T1 speeds 24 hours a day. I have a friend who thinks that way, and in his first month of having DSL he somehow managed to transfer 250 gigabytes of data, did he need all that crap? No! But he sure as hell though he was entitled to download as much of it as he could for his fifty dollars, and I can guaranty if he was the norm we would all be getting billed by the byte by now, that is if anyone was left in business to provide it.

The fact of the mater is just one Meg of guarantied Internet bandwidth even in the largest pipe costs a lot more than DSL costs. On top of that there is the expense of connecting your house all the way back to where the Internet connection is, which probably accounts for about half the cost of DSL. So if you figure 20 dollars for your connection from your house to the main office where the Internet connection is, and bandwidth at 100 dollars a meg, (that by the way is a really low a rate) you can see no one could stay in business if every customer was getting 7X24 worth of T1 bandwidth from their DSL line.

Your upload speed by the way is probably about the maximum average most providers expect to provide any single DSL user, it’s also why we don’t all have SDSL and why so many providers don’t want to give static address. This is their trick to keeping bandwidth usage down to levels that they can make a profit at, and unless you are a bandwidth glutton it means you are being penalized unfairly for others excesses.

Now I for one would be quite willing to consider moving to a metered service in exchange for internet service that isn’t choked down in anyway if it had a reasonable base transfer limit and a reasonable cost per gig after that. Give me 8 gigabytes a month and 5 dollars a gigabytes after and I would seriously consider it, up that to 12 gigabytes a month and 4 dollars a gigabytes after that and we probably have a deal, add to that even lower off peak rates and I am on board.

Also billing by usage also would open the door for even faster Internet service. Lets say I came out with a way to give every one who has a DSL connection a 100-megabyte connection at no additional cost to their DSL provider. As it stands I doubt there would be many takers unless the technology allowed them to throttle it down to keep bandwidth costs under control. Now move to a pay by usage structure and they will see it as a way to increase revenues instead of a way to loose money, and want to have it in use as soon as posable.

Xzibit
Wtf Mate?
Premium Member
join:2002-04-19
Santa Clara, CA

Xzibit

Premium Member

wow..

Today i used a total of 5.34 gb (12 hours connect time). I'd die if were in Australia, lol.

Thissux55
@65.213.x.x

Thissux55

Anon

Deception

Wow, this shows just how successful they have been by brainwashing everyone that bandwidth somehow costs so much money. Did you know that in reality bandwidth ACTUALLY costs very little, and most of the national and even transnational lines are very "dark" i.e. under capacity. As far as cable modems, i have talked to a very senior network engineer for NYC road runner, and their system is WAY, WAAAY under capacity, yet they still cap the upload at 384K. Why? Because everyone else does it. Why do you think Optimum online (the other NY/NJ cable modem provider) still has very hi upload cap? Because it doesnt cost them anything at all, vs, say 384K cap. Why might they start to cap? Because everyone else does it. Charge more money for the higher speed service, eventually. Here, road runner business costs 4x as much. It give even less bandwidth. Is it dedicated? yeah, right. The only reason to charge more, is because businesses will pay more. The whole bandwith cost lots of $$$ is deception just like the Diamond industry. DeBeers anyone?