Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have the worst internet provider in North America. I'm paying for broadband and getting median speed slower than dialup. My neighbor Chris is getting something like 30x my speed and my data transfer and he's paying less than I am.
Whose consumption is greater, and who should pay more tax?
Nobody can know who is consuming more data. Just because he has a faster connection, it doesn't mean that he uses it. Bad analogy.
He's using it quite a bit, and he's into gaming and videos. And I've lived with someone who was an obsessive gamer. Doing either is pretty much impossible with my connection. Anything more resource-consuming than browsing eBay is too slow to tolerate.
Who's stopping you? Why would you continue to pay more for worse service?
FYI - Consumption tax is based on what you or your neighbor pays for an internet connection, not the amount of data you're using. Unless his monthly bill is determined by usage (like a cell service plan), you would pay more despite your lower data usage.
I have the worst internet provider in North America. I'm paying for broadband and getting median speed slower than dialup. My neighbor Chris is getting something like 30x my speed and my data transfer and he's paying less than I am.
Whose consumption is greater, and who should pay more tax?
Your consumption is greaters and by a VAT tax (for those who want that), you should pay more.
You should also be smarter about choosing your internet provider. A VAT tax does not ensure that consumers will make the best choices. That, of course, is the duty of a nanny state.
It's been about seven years skince I worked a "customer service" desk for an ISP .... that company had purchased the networks and service contracts of several predecessors, and speeds on those systems varied widely.
The moat vocal complaints came from gamers ... usually adolescents who suspected that older infrastructure was affecting their speeds. Unfortunately, this is often related to something not easily fixed -- older cable in a rusty pipe buried underground, for example -- and the cost to address it might be substantial.
If the OP has the option of changing ISP's, that's his best bet. Where I worked, we also had a "construction" department which could investigate instances like the one I cited, but we were under no obligation to perfom the work for small gains in speed, which might benefit only a handful of customers.
The "consumption tax" issue is likely moot, since the amount of data put through the "pipleline" is a very small factor once the user advances beyond dial-up; You're paying mostly for access and reliability; speed is a side benefit that's not that important for most of the market.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 06-11-2012 at 08:05 AM..
As asked, why don't you? Sorry, I can't get passed this with your example.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
