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Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Speaking of which, I once lost access in my hotel room. I called the service number and they said I was blocked for downloading too much data. They turned me back on, but they told me to watch it. I was watching streaming TV in my room and downloading something with Bit Torrent. . Which, incidentally, affects everyone else on that same pipe. I was a bandwidth hog.
Eventually due to bandwidth issues I think the internet will become like a utility where you pay by usage in that a person who is constantly downloading stuff will pay more then a dude who only uses e-mail. Whether or not ISPs will control download speeds is a matter of lobbying. If the government lets them I think they definitely will.
Why shouldn't they? 25% of the customers cost 90% of the money. 5% of the customers cost 75% of the money to provide unlimited service at whatever maximum speed the technology allows. If ISP's (especially smaller ones) are not allowed to manage abuse, then everyone will pay a lot more than they need to.
Everyone who's been in this business knows that a small fraction of your customers create the vast majority of demand. The last time I actively and consistently measured total transferred data, (several years ago) the average use spread among the customers was a about 7 gigs of data month.
In reality, over half used less than 1 gig, another nearly half used 1 to 3 gigs of data in a month, and about 5% used 5 to 120 gigs in a month.
Useage patterns since than show that a larger percentage than 5 are "heavy users", but that 5% is is still astoundingly much higher than the rest. If those 5% paid the true cost of their use - as did everyone else, your "average" user would likely pay a little more than half.
This is why bitcaps or "pay as you use" models seem to be inevitable.
Why shouldn't they? 25% of the customers cost 90% of the money. 5% of the customers cost 75% of the money to provide unlimited service at whatever maximum speed the technology allows. If ISP's (especially smaller ones) are not allowed to manage abuse, then everyone will pay a lot more than they need to.
Everyone who's been in this business knows that a small fraction of your customers create the vast majority of demand. The last time I actively and consistently measured total transferred data, (several years ago) the average use spread among the customers was a about 7 gigs of data month.
In reality, over half used less than 1 gig, another nearly half used 1 to 3 gigs of data in a month, and about 5% used 5 to 120 gigs in a month.
Useage patterns since than show that a larger percentage than 5 are "heavy users", but that 5% is is still astoundingly much higher than the rest. If those 5% paid the true cost of their use - as did everyone else, your "average" user would likely pay a little more than half.
This is why bitcaps or "pay as you use" models seem to be inevitable.
You assume I am disagree with you when I am not. I tend to agree pay as you use models will likely become inevitable absent some sort of content tiering which is what I think is less desirable, because it will result in the internet having less content freedom.
Speaking of which, I once lost access in my hotel room. I called the service number and they said I was blocked for downloading too much data. They turned me back on, but they told me to watch it. I was watching streaming TV in my room and downloading something with Bit Torrent. . Which, incidentally, affects everyone else on that same pipe. I was a bandwidth hog.
An Internet user in California using a 300Mbps Bonded Verizon FiOS connection ...consumed 77TB in March 2013.
I ran a rural wireless ISP, where data capacity AND bandwidth were astoundingly expensive.
The typical customer paid less than $40/ mo. I sold him a 4megabit connection for just under 40 bucks. I BOUGHT bandwidth WHOLESALE at 65 / megabit. I sold him his connection and speed at 15% of my cost. The fact that the vast majority don't use bandwidth 24/7 and that most still did not use netflix, hulu, run bittorent (I cut people off if I got warnings for illegal downloading), etc, was the only reason it worked out. When I left, my bandwidth cost was 46% of my total income and rising at several percent a year.
Had my customers begun to use things like file sharing more, I would have had to block or throttle it to keep the costs from spiraling wildly.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
10,471 posts, read 15,838,455 times
Reputation: 6438
Quote:
Originally Posted by Egbert
You assume I am disagree with you when I am not. I tend to agree pay as you use models will likely become inevitable absent some sort of content tiering which is what I think is less desirable, because it will result in the internet having less content freedom.
That's why I left cable. AT&T bought out our cable company. We were warned, "You might lose service for 24 hours." and "Your package deals will stay the same as before."
Yeah. Here's what happened. It was out for 3 days. No cable. Nada. It came back on. I got kids. Where is the Disney? I like smarty-smart stuff. Where is the History channel? I call. "Oh, that channel is a part of the Learning package." and only 5 dollars more for that package. "OH, that's part of the Kid's Package." .....and only 5 dollars more. I asked to be transferred to disconnect my service and got "lost" in the transfer. Called back to disconnect and the line was busy, forever. Called back to buy the service, and got someone in like, 5 seconds. Then I asked for a supervisor, got their name and got connected to the disconnect people.
That was sometime around the year 2000. Goodbye, Mickey. Hello, Clifford the Big Red Dog. I never looked back. Packages (to me) are stupid. Look, if I go to the grocery store, I can buy a steak. I don't have someone telling me, "You can have a steak if you also buy 5 lbs of bacon and a years worth of Scrapple." Oh, hell naw.
That's why I left cable. AT&T bought out our cable company. We were warned, "You might lose service for 24 hours." and "Your package deals will stay the same as before."
Yeah. Here's what happened. It was out for 3 days. No cable. Nada. It came back on. I got kids. Where is the Disney? I like smarty-smart stuff. Where is the History channel? I call. "Oh, that channel is a part of the Learning package." and only 5 dollars more for that package. "OH, that's part of the Kid's Package." .....and only 5 dollars more. I asked to be transferred to disconnect my service and got "lost" in the transfer. Called back to disconnect and the line was busy, forever. Called back to buy the service, and got someone in like, 5 seconds. Then I asked for a supervisor, got their name and got connected to the disconnect people.
That was sometime around the year 2000. Goodbye, Mickey. Hello, Clifford the Big Red Dog. I never looked back. Packages (to me) are stupid. Look, if I go to the grocery store, I can buy a steak. I don't have someone telling me, "You can have a steak if you also buy 5 lbs of bacon and a years worth of Scrapple." Oh, hell naw.
Other then when it came with apartments and dorms I haven't had cable since I was in middle school. Its all junk anyway. I guess that is what happens when there is no competition for content.
For one, I have no idea what you mean by "what ISP's are asking for". Because in my decade of being in the internet business, I have never met, nor ever heard of any ISP asking for anything except the freedom to be in business and manage their network to be the most cost effective possible.
What I mean is... well we can just look at the court filing from Verizon...
[scribd]166114407[/scribd]
Let's be honest, they want to control the content because that's where the big money is at. As far as the monopoly goes give me break, satellite, DSL and cell service doesn't count. Once you get out of the densely poplated areas the competition evaporates, I live in a county with 300k where most people live in densely populated area. You have a choice of one cable company or slow ass DSL.
Why shouldn't they? 25% of the customers cost 90% of the money. 5% of the customers cost 75% of the money to provide unlimited service at whatever maximum speed the technology allows. If ISP's (especially smaller ones) are not allowed to manage abuse, then everyone will pay a lot more than they need to.
Charge them for it then.... I have no issue with these companies charging whatever the hell they want. If they need to shape traffic for technical reasons so be it as long as it's being done blindly without preference to XYZ company. What I do have an issue with is control of the content, anything that is going to allow the ISP's to control the content has to be stopped.
As a poor person who has been heavily inconvenienced by bandwidth hogs gaming and streaming pron, those are the two specific things against which I am ill-disposed.
Before I was able to afford home internet, I took my laptop to the library for the free wifi. Unfortunately, a large group of gamers - all of which appeared to have had no visible means of support - discovered it was a great place to game all day. My ancient 802.11b was no match for their high-end machines, and I was literally unable to access any websites more graphics-intensive than craigslist. That is unacceptable to me.
Then I moved into a house and signed up for broadband and bundled it with cable. We have 4 people splitting the bill. One of them was streaming pron and whenever he did that the router kicked me offline. We had a house meeting and all agreed on paying for more bandwidth; split four ways that worked out to $3 more per month so I'm not complaining if it keeps everyone happy and prevents me from getting kicked offline.
So there are two things against which I have a grudge and am not neutral about.
For one, I have no idea what you mean by "what ISP's are asking for". Because in my decade of being in the internet business, I have never met, nor ever heard of any ISP asking for anything except the freedom to be in business and manage their network to be the most cost effective possible.
then i'm sorry, but you just are not credible.
verizon , at&t, and time warner have, for decades, spent a tremendous amount of money lobbying politicians for favorable rules.
just look at the state laws they've been pushing to eliminate municipal broadband.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pnwmdk
The ISP's interest is in retaining customers. The moment the customer finds that their ISP is selectively blocking their access, the competitors will swoop in and their customer base will VANISH faster than the dot-coms with no plan to make money went broke.
you're ignoring the lack of broadband competition. the major ISPs have divided up different geographic areas into a captive audience when it comes to high speed internet.
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