  Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 |  A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral
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The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
»www.politico.com/rss/2012-election-blog.xml
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 | | | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral Can never tell if serious or trolling.A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral now while riding the upside of growing traffic. That is, the per byte billing rate can be set such that they make no more or no less than what they bring in now. | |
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| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral said by Abbot7 :Which they would never, ever do. Why not? Can you think of a more palatable method to introduce UBB while avoiding strong opposition from the masses? | |
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| | | | | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral Apparently you didn't read my second sentence. | |
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| | | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral I did, but you prefaced it with "they never will". | |
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| | | I just want Comcast to start charging something, anything, for overages. Right now they're walking away from money.
Kicking higher use customers off or sending them to Comcast's business class product (which is an abuse of that service) isn't the answer now that they are fully DOCSIS 3. | |
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| | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral I agree that they shouldn't kick them off. They should "upgrade" them to a service that suits their needs.
However, charging overage fees will eventually bring anger from the average user. We're headed toward more data, not less. While today's caps might be OK for most, cable has been busy raising speeds but leaving caps fixed. Sooner or later this is going to collide with the average user. When enough folks get angry, they are going to look for alternatives. One of two things is going to happen. Either competitors will enter the market because they sense there's money to be made or the lack of competition will cause legislators to regulate. Case in point, I understand congress is considering revising the baggage fee mania of the airlines. Despite competition and Southwest NOT charging baggage fees, it seems evident that the airlines have ticked off their customers enough for even a heavily lobbied and pro-corporate congress to consider taking action.
I don't see a whole lot of difference between the airlines baggage fees and HSI-provider caps with overage fees. | |
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| | | | Of course and we wouldnt expect anything less from you.
I also want the car dealers, super markets, insurance companies, all local utilities, cable / SAT and IPTV, online retailers, the government, movie theaters and gas stations to start charging more too because they are all walking away from money!!! | |
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| | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral They likely will if the market bears it  | |
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| | | | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral And if consumers stopped paying the price if they deem it too egregious, prices would stop rising. | |
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| | | | | | Reviews:
 ·Callcentric
| Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral What choice do most Americans have? It's like implying that if you do not like power pricing, get rid of it from your house. Data has become as essential as any other utility in our lives.
This is indeed why so many countries that have consumer protection agencies (the thing the GOP has blocked here) have polices to encourage competition and stamp out US style monopolies.
I had a good 10+ broadband providers to choose from when I was abroad. Using technologies ranging from cable, wifi, ADSL2+, 3.5G etc, all in one location. I only have 1 here - comcast.
This is why other nations are starting to roll out a government owned wholesale FTTP network. Much like roads, this model allows a range of carriers to sell data services over the wholesale network; rather than the status-quo where monopolies do whatever they want. | |
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| | | | | | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral said by Telco:This is why other nations are starting to roll out a government owned wholesale FTTP network. Great concept. Who pays for it? | |
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| | | | | | | | | | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral said by openbox9:Great concept. Who pays for it?
Are you kidding? Subscriber revenue pays for it. Instead of $10 billion - $20 billion in pure profit every year going to executive compensation and shareholder bonuses, all profits would go back into the network. | |
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| | | | | | | | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral Let me rephrase. Since this national, federally funded and managed infrastructure does not exist, who is going to pay to create it? | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral How about we take all those billions in subsidies to the major providers now and just re-route it this? | |
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| | Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| Comcast does have overage charges - they're the $17 difference between business class and residential class.
Comcast isn't stupid, and they wouldn't be allowing people in business class to use unlimited bandwidth if they weren't making money. Anyone who believes that they are somehow ignorant that heavy users subscribe to business class service is naive. Their system isn't being "abused" - they're offering a better service and you pay more money for it. Their network is so undercapacity, in my area at least, that they make money even on the $43/month residential users who hit their caps. They aren't going to kick off users who pay them $17 more to use a network that has more than enough bandwidth available. That's probably why their business services are slower than their residential services - because the speed of the connection is calculated to be its own cap.
To me, this seems to be a very fair system as it is currently set up. If you want a cap, you pay less for residential service. If you want unlimited service, you pay more for commercial service. You get what you pay for, and Comcast makes money accordingly.
In my opinion, Comcast's business class is by far the best ISP that I have ever had. Unlike FiOS, I always get Comcast's provisioned speeds and have never seen a slowdown below those speeds at any time of day. Comcast's network has never gone out, not even once, and their ping times are lower than Verizon's. I never hear from them about bandwidth usage or running servers. I send them my $60 every month, and it just works. | |
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| | | | | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral That's just silly considering the nature of cable tech versus FTTH and it's actually the other way round. | |
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| | | | | said by quintin3265:Comcast does have overage charges - they're the $17 difference between business class and residential class.
Comcast isn't stupid, and they wouldn't be allowing people in business class to use unlimited bandwidth if they weren't making money. Anyone who believes that they are somehow ignorant that heavy users subscribe to business class service is naive. Their system isn't being "abused" - they're offering a better service and you pay more money for it. Their network is so undercapacity, in my area at least, that they make money even on the $43/month residential users who hit their caps. They aren't going to kick off users who pay them $17 more to use a network that has more than enough bandwidth available. That's probably why their business services are slower than their residential services - because the speed of the connection is calculated to be its own cap.
To me, this seems to be a very fair system as it is currently set up. If you want a cap, you pay less for residential service. If you want unlimited service, you pay more for commercial service. You get what you pay for, and Comcast makes money accordingly.
In my opinion, Comcast's business class is by far the best ISP that I have ever had. Unlike FiOS, I always get Comcast's provisioned speeds and have never seen a slowdown below those speeds at any time of day. Comcast's network has never gone out, not even once, and their ping times are lower than Verizon's. I never hear from them about bandwidth usage or running servers. I send them my $60 every month, and it just works.
The truth is bandwidth costs a giant ISP like Comcast about 1 cent/GB. On average they spend $1/month/customer on bandwidth costs. | |
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| | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | said by JasonOD :Kicking higher use customers off or sending them to Comcast's business class product Isn't that charging more by default? | |
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| Reviews:
·Earthlink Cable ..
 ·Verizon FiOS
| said by Romney2012:And that higher revenue can be used to create higher profits. FTFY.
Monopoly think: Why waste perfectly good money on infrastructure when it can be used to make the bottom line bigger??? | |
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| | Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral said by praetoralpha: Why waste perfectly good money on infrastructure when it can be used to make the bottom line bigger???
Cable companies spend Billions every year on infrastructure upgrades. Read the annual reports. | |
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| | | | | Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral said by Romney2012:said by praetoralpha: Why waste perfectly good money on infrastructure when it can be used to make the bottom line bigger???
Cable companies spend Billions every year on infrastructure upgrades. Read the annual reports. Has their infrastructure spending in absolute dollars increased proportionally as their customer base and revenues have increased? | |
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| | |  ThalerPremium
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA
kudos:3 | I honestly wouldn't know it based upon what I see locally. Many of our utilities seem to be operating on a skeleton maintenance budget. | |
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| | | Rekrul
join:2007-04-21
Milford, CT Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
| said by Romney2012:Cable companies spend Billions every year on infrastructure upgrades. Read the annual reports. And yet somehow, all of their upgrades are crippled by a handful of users running BitTorrent. Or so they claim... | |
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1 edit | For TWC I see only $150 million devoted to upgrades of their $18 billion business. There are a few billion more for maintenance, subscriber boxes, and expansion, but those don't improve customer service to justify massive rate increases. It also appears that TWC's cost of bandwidth per data customer is about $1 per month! | |
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| ThalerPremium
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA
kudos:3 Reviews:
 ·DSL EXTREME
| They could...but they won't. If UBB was made fairly, customers would actually be able to save money by using less bandwidth. As things stand now, no customer actually sees savings. The best they can aim for is to continue to be screwed at today's rates.
said by Romney2012:And that higher revenue can be used to both expand infrastructure and create higher profits.
They've already been very profitable. Shouldn't the current high profits go to network infrastructure investment? What is there to believe that this influx of profit would be any different? | |
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| KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | They let people use business class unlimited because they know the typical home user who gets it to go download crazy is also unlikely to be calling in a lot and using that expedited service that business class comes with.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
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| | ThalerPremium
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA
kudos:3 Reviews:
·DSL EXTREME
| Re: A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral said by r81984:You should not get unfair discounts for using your connection less when costs are the same.
There is a per-connection cost for internet, that is true. However, to say that a bandwidth hog doesn't cost the ISP more in costs compared to a one-a-day email checker is silly.
A fair UBB would be one where light users would actually see a real reduction on bills. All the ones currently proposed though offer no such thing - the best users can do is break even with their current overpriced connection. | |
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See 12 replies to this post |
| Reviews:
·Optimum Online
·Verizon FiOS
| said by Romney2012:A UBB plan can be designed to be revenue neutral now while riding the upside of growing traffic. That is, the per byte billing rate can be set such that they make no more or no less than what they bring in now. But as traffic continues to grow as more and more users start streaming video, they can ride that to higher revenue. And that higher revenue can be used to both expand infrastructure and create higher profits.
Based upon the current nature of the market.. be it wired or wireless... there is a maximum $ per month a consumer wants to spend on internet data and/or bundles of services. Back in 1996, that price tag was $40-$100. Today that price is somewhere between $60 - $200. Overages that could rack up into the hundreds or thousands extra would price ISPs who make that foolish choice out of the market. Also consider, most cable companies are NOT in the wireless market. The wired market in comparison has a LOWER consumer psycholocial price ceiling than the wireless market. Something AT&T and Verizon exploit very well. | |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·RoadRunner Cable
| Wishful Thinking Bloggers? "Except as we've noted for years, carriers aren't really interested in truly cost-conscious, usage-based options, because a carrier loses money. Were a "light" customer who currently pays $50-$60 a month for service suddenly be offered an option where they only paid for what they use, they'd wind up paying $5-$10 a month"
TWC's offering was $15/month, shouted down by so-called consumer advocates. even before ACTUAL customers had a chance to subscribe it.
Thanks to the actions of loud-mouth pundits, a large percentage of low-volume users are paying double or triple what they would have. Thanks heaps, Karl. | |
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|  trparkyApple... YUMPremium,MVM
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
kudos:1 | Re: The telephone cartel outsmarted itself in the 30's! The only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that one has the elephant as their mascot and the other has an ass (donkey). | |
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| | | | Re: The telephone cartel outsmarted itself in the 30's! said by trparky:The only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that one has the elephant as their mascot and the other has an ass (donkey).
Nah there's a difference. One's hopelessly corrupt and the other is full of sociopaths. | |
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 n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
·Optimum Online
| Canada Spent a week visiting family outside of Toronto and they have Rogers 60GB capped service. That is shared by two adults, two teenagers an eight-year-old and a five-year-old (the youngest watch streaming cartoons). Basically allowing 2GB total consumption per day. As they hate overages, two of the days I was there their router was turned off as they had gone over the daily 2GB limit they impose on themselves. Frankly I find it a terrible way to use the internet and I am glad to have Optimum Online at 20/2 and no cap.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
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| | | | Re: Canada said by El Quintron:said by n2jtx:Spent a week visiting family outside of Toronto and they have Rogers 60GB capped service. That is shared by two adults, two teenagers an eight-year-old and a five-year-old (the youngest watch streaming cartoons). Basically allowing 2GB total consumption per day.
These people have options... I'm not saying the situation in Canada is fantastic, but your family would benefit getting their internet elsewhere that's for sure. What options? | |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Overages are bullshit If caps exist because of congestion then how does overages help? Aren't you still allowing congestion? As long as the "hogs" can afford to pay the overages then you are going to still have congestion issues. And before someone chimes in and says that overage money will pay for infrusture improvements, the problem with that logic is that improvements are in the future and the congestion is NOW. How is an improvement YEARS in the future going to help me NOW if you're allowing congestion to continue?
And before someone else chimes in and says caps aren't really about congestion, yes I know that. Hence why both the caps and overages are bullshit.
If an ISP actually has a congestion issue that is so bad it requires a cap them they can't also allow people to go over that cap even if they are willing to pay. A cap with overage really isn't a cap. | |
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| Rob_Premium
join:2008-07-16
Mary Esther, FL | Re: Overages are bullshit Caps are not needed. I wish we can tell Congress to pass a bill that will FORCE ISP's to not cap their customers, keep their rates reasonable and bring competition nationwide..
I think this is what the Mayans saw in Dec 21st 2012, people going offline and cable co's go bankrupt because they can't use what they are paying for 
-Rob | |
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| | I can't wait to tell comcast.... where to stick there coax cable when a local wireless isp expands to my area. | |
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 kingdome74What Have You DonePremium
join:2002-03-27
Syracuse, NY
kudos:2 | And remember... ... folks that Genachowski and the FCC supports usage-based pricing. | |
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Rob_Premium
join:2008-07-16
Mary Esther, FL | Video Product.. This is to protect that.. however, as more and more people CUT THE CORD.. I think this bullshit will cease. I'm not against cable co's making $$$ I'm against them abusing their power and telling us what we can do. I'm not a gamer but I do watch movies online and this new format will shut down netflix, blockbuster and any online media all because people can't go over their monthly caps. I do believe once the general (non BBR USER) learns about this shit, the revolution will begin and people will be pissed.
I refuse to pay for a channel I rarely watch, ESPN and they are the BIGGEST reasons why cable's rates are going up.. heed my warnings CEO's..
My days of being a cable customer are numbered and will just have ultimate interent and a HULU/Netflix TV and an over the air antenna.
We gotta cut back and don't have $140.00 for DVR, three premiums and infomercials.
Press one for English, press 2 for Spanish is one big reason why Americans don't have jobs.. (illegals) but that's a whole other rant
-Rob | |
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| | UBB is just scheme to raise prices further. We overpay now! What it really boils down to is that most customers are stuck with a monopoly cable ISP and a monopoly telco ISP if they are lucky and tens of millions only have one choice for consumer grade broadband.
The FCC should have enforced line-sharing but they didn't and now we have everything that is bad with monopolies with none of the super-fast internet available in other countries that we were promised via the libertarian magic dust of "the market".
US consumers already pay significantly more for their broadband than those in Europe or Asia. Cable ISP's are immensely profitable. As the article points out they often have 80%+ gross margins on the service. Just check their public financial statements if you doubt me.
UBB is just another scheme to raise the average price paid. It has next to nothing to do with punishing heavy users or delaying network upgrades. UBB has everything to do with with making the average user, already paying about $50/month, pay $75/month instead.
Most of these articles pushing UBB are basically being planted by the cable companies as a form of "price signaling", a form of illegal collusion, similar to how the Bank of America announced far in advance they were adding a new $5 fee, hoping the other big banks would do the same thing.
If they were really serious about UBB, they would be offering to drop the base price to $20/month and add usage on top of that, but they really just want $15-50 extra dollars in overages from the typical customer on top of the $50/month they pay, even though faster service is available in Europe and Asia for $30/month with no caps or UBB.
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Just pretend for the purposes of argument that I know what I am talking about. Actually, you don't need to pretend because I do know what I am talking about. | |
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The telephone cartel outsmarted itself in the 30's!
Back in the 1930's the telephone industry and AT&T was pulling the same crap as the ISP's are today, high prices and screw the consumer. Citizens got tired of being abused and during a period of low lawmaker corruption the Fed's regulated the telephone industry because it was a monopoly. The same needs to be done to the Broadband Industry. We need a landslide during the next election dumping the greedy old pigs (GOP) and replacing them with lawmakers that have their constituents in mind rather than their ultra rich contributors. Hopefully Grover will drop dead, the sooner the better.