How To Split An Atom - Latest Comments in Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

profy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:40:55 -0000

Add a post on the same topic to your schedule and we will resume the discussion in half a year :)

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

sbspalding — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:00:08 -0000

I think it will be interesting to look back on this debate in 6 months.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

profy — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:35:27 -0000

Yes, that's what I told in a FriendFeed discussion around this comment - your attitude towards metered internet depends only on how "spoiled" you are by the services you used to get from your ISP :)

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Maggy Young — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:49:34 -0000

In response to GetaClue, do we really want the government to nationalize the internet ? Then it will be another crucial aspect of everyone's life which will be owned & controlled & influenced by the government. A government controlled internet ? Think about all the possible ramifications for political control & you make Soviet Russia seem like a democracy. Whatever the outcome, I think this is not the road we want to go down.
Re. metering, now the net has become a utility much like electric, gas, water, metering is a reasonable discussion point. In UK we have, or did have, ISP payment options for restricted or unlimited access. To me this makes sense, running as a simple 2 tier system which relates payment to use/benefit. It enables users who only use the net occasionally eg. mainly for emails to family & the occasional search, to have the facility at a sizeable discount to extensive users. Think particularly of the old & the sick.
And to GetaClue, can't you see the government levying heavy taxes on use once it owned the internet ? A wonderful opportunity for a new tax which would be paid by nearly all citizens & it could increase the amount annually & everyone would, in practice, have to stick with it & pay it. Plenty of excuses from budget defecit to Iraq War.
I think the emphasis should maybe be less on metering or otherwise, but on keeping ISP prices low, which is helped by a competitive environment.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Tim Scheer — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:23:36 -0000

There will always be at least one or two remaining companies that will always stick with their "unlimited" or "flat" rates.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

sbspalding — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:44:22 -0000

I agree. If anything this article (and mostly the comments) have taught me that metering when looked at broadly is an extremely complex issue.

I think what makes America different is that we've lived under unlimited service plans for so long, and our use patterns are based on unlimited, free-flowing access.

In other parts of the world where unlimited access has never been common, this doesn't (and shouldn't') seem like a big deal.

Thanks as always Lana!

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Andrew — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:00:30 -0000

Sadly South Africa has been 'metered' since... welll... forever. Look at the sat-3 cable running up the coast and you'll realise why, it has *very* little bandwidth.

Depending on what you mean by 'working', it already is working for the corporates (Telkom and cronies). It's only as for consumers that it doesn't work... and that doesn't really count for much :(

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

profy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:43:33 -0000

Steve, is not it funny how you talk about people and their way of using the Internet but refer not to the people in general but mainly to the people in the US. You will be surprised but in some countries people still pay based on the usage and unlimited service plans are more of a privilege :) For example, here in Russia (not in Moscow, the situation in the capital is better) the ISPs only recently started to offer unlimited plans - and until then heavy users like me used to pay very huge bills here. So metered internet does work in some places - it just depends on what your ISPs actually want to offer.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

avarus — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:38:38 -0000

a real dedicated 100mbit line is at 2000-3000 EUR/month here (includes the traffic as well) :). So go get it! :D

In Germany most providers offer unmetered plans but all countries around germany don't and I only believe this works in germany because they still have the leecher under some control or just enough bandwidth still available :).

You'll get an unmetered 16/1 line for around 40 EUR here (including telephone flatrate). Two years ago I paid 49 EUR for a 2/0,386 line (without telephone flatrate).

Well, I still don't get the panic about comcast, at&t etc...

You can always get an unmetered access to the internet...it's just a matter of $$$ and if you are not willing to pay you can just change the provider as you just wrote in your text.

Ok, that's it, I'm done :).

Btw.: nice blog.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

couchmonster — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:42:26 -0000

Metering works as long as there is plenty of competition. New Zealand used to have very little competition, and very high metered bandwidth prices. Thankfully this has dropped in the last few years with increased competition - with one ISP (xnet.co.nz) simply offering a base fee of about $15-40 (depending on the up/down speed of your line) and then less than $1 per Gb. (figured adjusted to US$)

I've since moved to Australia, and if you're happy to take an 80/20 offpeak/peak split with your bandwidth bill (ie. 80% of your 'cap' is allocated for use between 2am and 10am) you can get over 100Gb/month for around $45 (ADSL2+, slow upload speeds, p2p traffic might be rate limited at peak times)

If you're an email only type person, I think you can get a FREE 2Gb/month connection if you switch your cellphone over to Virgin. (and then $10/Gb over that or something ridiculous - thats where they make the money)

Personally I pay around $150/month for 90Gb down with Internode - this is a business class connection with no p2p rate limiting and UNLIMITED upload at 2Mbit. Once I split the cost with my flatmate it's a reasonable figure to pay each, and we know we have the bandwidth on hand whenever we need it.

User pays systems work, especially when the bandwidth costs come down to a negligible level.

For me, it's just normal to shell out US$60-80 per month for my internet connection. If I'm living with others, I'll try to get them to chip in for something bigger and better, if not then it's enough to cover my own personal use anyway.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

foobar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:06:52 -0000

You practically admit that bandwidth costs and telcos should suck it up (why?), yet say that it doesn't cost. Bits may move for free but maintaining the lines and building new lines is not free, and the bandwidth provided by current lines is limited. Even an elementary school child acknowledges that the usage of limited resources can and *should* cost money. I can't comprehend how your mind could've become that twisted as to not realize that.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

LaZyLion — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:39:44 -0000

so cell phones are going the way of the landline, unlimited air time and eventually even free long distance.... it'll be a few years sure but i'll happen.

but the internet is going backwards? nifty!

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Nobody — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:33:42 -0000

Almost everyone in Australia has metered internet, so we all that you're wrong.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Russell — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:14:50 -0000

Coming from a country where metering has been the standard for well over 4 years (Australia) it's not quite the end of the world as it may appear to you. I have a reasnoably heavy use of Xbox live services, general internet use and online gaming as well as the occasional torernting and we usually come in around 20gb a month without having to watch carefully.

Friends that use torrents heavily might be on a 40 or 60gb a month plan, but in the long run they tend to just waste the extra bandwidth they have at the end of the month anyway. Much of the world survives quite happily on metered internet.

Also the whole 'bandwidth is free' thing is a fallacy, ISPs need to maintain equipment and add equipment when extra users come online. It's not free in the least, or everyone could just have their own ISP. I'm not leaping to 'big company's' defence here, it's the way it is. Truth be told service marginally imrpoved after metering was introduced as the local broadband is all DSL based and users who were constantly downloading backed off - allowing the actual speed to come closer to their potential more often.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

John Thomas — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:10:29 -0000

I dont like it. I signed up for unlimited, the paperwork says unlimited, anything else will result in a lawsuit!

JT
http://www.ULtimate-Anonymity.com

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

sbspalding — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:32:19 -0000

Just to clear things up. The title is a little tongue and cheek.

In general I think Metering can't and won't work because it goes against the way the Internet is used now. If the only reason people used the web was for email, it would be fine; however, these days it wouldn't be hard to come up with tons of legitimate uses for the net that could put you over your cap.

As for unsecured lines. Plenty of people leave their wireless open purposefully, I think metering might reduce the number of people who willingly share their connections and would derail huge numbers of community networking projects.

As for MMORPGs. Patches eat tons of bandwidth.

Just to reiterate -- metering (as a concept) is not crazy, every Utility company does it. Metering the Internet is a bandage for a problem that the telcos will need to learn to solve another way.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

sbspalding — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:24:08 -0000

Still agree. The point isn't that Metering isn't wrong it's that it isn't
anything new and that the "concept" isn't crazy. It's something that telcos
have been trying to get away with forever.

Hopefully, as long as everyone keeps coming out against this it will never
catch on.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Brianary — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:23:59 -0000

"Their network"? Terrible excuse. So the only way I have a right to freely participate in modern society is to buy every node on the Internet?

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

IC — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:40:25 -0000

Which online games use a lot of bandwidth? Last I checked it was pretty damn low for just about anything..

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Jester — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:36:48 -0000

Wrong. Metering IS completeley crazy. It costs money to generate the electricity - that's what you pay for. But data will travel down a wire without much assistance. Pretending otherwise is a fraud. Put differently: Pretending that you have bandwidth for sale should be a crime. Profilteering telcos oversold their available backbones by factors of hundreds for many years. Now they are whining like squealing pigs that the "illegal downloaders" (yeah, the few power users that you refer to) are actually claiming their share of (paid for) bandwidth. Suck it up, telcos. Provide the service you claim to do, or get out.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Mr. Hota — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:17:59 -0000

The only "problem" I think the author got right was the bit about competition. Service providers have an economic incentive to not restrict, curb, or discriminate traffic flowing across their networks. But they have every right to do whatever they want with their property. It is, after all, their property.

Re: getaclue . . . Well, how else to say it except, "Get a clue." Federal policy, specifically the Telecommunications Act of 1996 promotes and encourages overuse, overconsumption, and wasteful use of a scarce resource--network bandwidth.

We have a standard tragedy of the commons on the major carriers' networks because they're forced (on pain of legal penalty or worse for non-compliance) to allow rivals access to their wire-line networks. It seems to me that price discrimination should have been used from the very beginning (like toll roads). Only reason it hasn't been like that seems to be solely due to federal, state, and local legislation restricting competition, encouraging monopoly/cartelization, and basically holding consumers hostage to privileged carriers.

Not only are such policies counter-productive, but they are terribly immoral. You and I have no "right" to use other peoples' property. As I see it, we wouldn't have such a sticky problem if people were free to enter the market without having to get "licensed" by the FCC or bargain/bribe/beg with state and local governments to provide a wanted service to consumers. If you didn't like the service of your single regional provider, you'd then be free to quit them and start your own provider.

I don't see what everyone's so worried about. To the extent this is a problem, government created it, and now everyone's calling for a government band-aid to fix the mess. And to the extent that communications networks are private property, you have no "right" to access them. And no, it doesn't matter that you REALLY REALLY REALLY want to use the internet.

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

Danny D — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:02:28 -0000

So last century! Build a municipal infrastructure and let isps compete for lowest rates, in Lund, Sweden i'm payin 100 swedish crowns for 100/100 (up-/down-stream) Mbits unlimited fiberoptic broadband(not that copper wire crap) , that's approx 10 euros or i guess like 20 bucks, suckers...

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

sbspalding — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:45:10 -0000

I completely agree with you. Read the entire article.

Metered Internet won't work, nor should it.

That won't stop every telecom under the sun from trying it though.

Good information by the way,

Re: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

getaclue — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:31:42 -0000

This is all just more steaming piles of corporate bullshit. We have already paid for broadband access. It is now time to cough it up and WITHOUT parceling out access. READ and WEEP.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_...

In light of the ongoing, continuing and unspeakable greed of the telecoms, it is now time to revisit municipal WiFi. Let them cry about "unfair competition" -- they invented it.

Better yet, time for a congress with the balls to turn the internet into a utility and NATIONALIZE it.

FUCK telecoms.

Oh and by the way if the ass clowns in congress do cave on immunity, I'm cancelling my phone service. How many of you will do the same? ATT can choose between facing the music for its lawbreaking activities or going the fuck out of business.

Think about it. We all survived thousands of years without phones. If we had to go without even for a short period, JUST to make the point, would you? How many of you will sit quietly by and allow this highway robbery to continue???

They want to CONTROL and DESTROY the internet which is now a world forum. They want IMMUNITY for breaking the LAW and INVADING your PRIVACY.