Reader David sends this item from the Wall Street Journal. The topic is tiered Internet plans, and it includes this quote:
When Time Warner announced last March it would expand its metered-pricing approach to other cities, including Austin and Rochester, protests erupted. Rep. Joe Messa of Rochester introduced a bill in Congress banning tiered Internet pricing plans, arguing the plan would put his city at a disadvantage for corporate investment.
Of course, "Joe Messa" is "Eric Massa".
Aside from that howler, the rest of the report is a big wet sloppy kiss to Internet service providers. It says that the FCC's enforcement of net neutrality will push the ISPs to institute tiered pricing (i.e., usage caps and overage charges). It fails to mention that by far the most profitable service Time-Warner provides is Internet service, that ISPs have little competition and engage in monopolistic price fixing, and that the costs of equipment and bandwidth have been falling every year.
Comments
I'm in favor of tiered pricing provided that it lowers the cost for most users, and lowers revenue overall. In theory, adding the tiering will reduce 'wasteful' surfing and thus reduce the cost for the ISP, so they can afford to pass along some of the savings. The vast majority of users are hugely profitable while a handful at the top could actually cost money; the grandma who checks emails is subsidising the kid using bittorrent 24/7. I have little sympathy for Time Warner, considering that RoadRunner isn't faster but cost more compared to when it first arrived... that said either they have a monopoly and should be prosecuted/legislated accordingly or they should be able charge what they want. Hell they already charge what they want.
I'm fine with tiered pricing along the lines of what you suggest (lowered revenue, lowered costs), assuming the ISP gives users the tools to watch their usage.
What irritates me is Time Wanker (hey, that's who I make the checks out to, and they cash them!) brags in their advertising about their "super fast speed". For download only!
Their upload speeds are on par with dialup.
They don't mention that.
Unfortunately, all residential Internet available in the 29th is "asymmetric" - faster down than up. As you point out, that doesn't make a lot of sense in today's environment where we're sharing photos and video over the Internet.
Apparently most of you are too young to remember a 254 baud modem
I used a 300 baud modem and I also stored my programs on a cassette tape drive once upon a time.