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Why can't we just have unlimited for wire-based services? Also, I'll take a flat rate over "reasonable rates for usage" any day, when it comes to my internet.

Why can't we just have unlimited for wire-based services? Also, I'll take a flat rate over "reasonable rates for usage" any day, when it comes to my internet. I'm sorry, but my usage varies wildly, and I want a consistent bill I can trust. I would be in support of a "$0.25 a GB of 35/35 until you hit 250GB, then flat rate of $X for the rest of the month, at a limited 15/10" or something like that

otterley 15y ago
> Why can't we just have unlimited for wire-based services? Because routers and trunk circuits can't handle unlimited amounts of traffic.
mikeash 15y ago
Wire-based services suffer from contention as well, just at a much higher usage than wireless services. A provider's costs to serve you are largely fixed. A sane bill will have a large fixed cost plus a variable cost for usage. For example, rather than the fixed ~$45/month I pay to Comcast, I'd expect to pay something like $30/month for the connection itself, then another $15 (or perhaps more, since I'm probably a heavier user than the average) for bandwidth. We manage to get by without fixed bills for gasoline, food, electricity, water, etc., what makes internet special where you absolutely need it to be consistent?
- sukuriant 15y ago
  I have no stats, but gasoline, food, electricity and water are, generally, a constant price and value. I suspect internet usage, especially if a person hosts a website/dedicated video game server would vary considerably month to month. Statistics need to be taken to validate/invalidate my speculation; but, I imagine when I was on 35/35 FiOS and 25/25(20/20?) FiOS beforehand, my internet fluctuated on the order of 10s, 20s or even 50s of GBs a month.
  - mikeash 15y ago
    My electricity bill varies by a factor of 4 over the course of a year, since the bulk of my electricity use in winter and summer is heating and cooling. This is true of a lot of people I've talked to, and they all get by fine just the same. People who host web sites or dedicated video game servers are usually already paying for usage. Some hosts offer "unlimited" plans but most charge for bandwidth. Somehow they survive. Let's say your internet fluctuated by 50GB/month. Comcast is currently effectively charging me 20 cents/GB right now (~$50/month with 250GB cap). Even if this rate doubled under some hypothetical pay for usage plan, you're talking about fluctuations on the order of $20/month. If you can't tolerate that then you probably have bigger financial problems to worry about. Recall that the current situation with most ISPs is not actually unlimited. It's just that when you exceed their arbitrary and usually private limits, instead of charging you more, they make your connection stop working or they fire you as a customer. (With Comcast, if you exceed 250GB in one month, they warn you. If you do it again, they fire you.) Having your bill go up for additional usage is better, not worse, than having your connection stop working altogether.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  For wired lines, he provider does not pay for usage, it pays for a certain sized pipe. So if you use a terabyte of data in a month but all of it comes at off-peak times, but your neighbour uses 10 gigabytes a month but always does it during the peak evening period, your neighbour costs the provider more than you do.
  - mikeash 15y ago
    If the provider did not pay for usage, then why would they care how much you use in a given month? And yet, wired internet providers are demonstrably upset if you use "too much", with some even having official policies of kicking you off their network if you do it consistently. Ultimately capacity is the limiting factor, but the way capacity is managed is to charge people to use it. Your ISP is charged by the byte for its connections to other ISPs. You're absolutely correct that usage patterns greatly impact the cost of usage, but simply charging by the byte is a good approximation. A more sophisticated arrangement might have different prices at different times of day (this is already common for electricity) but so far it doesn't appear that this is necessary.

otterley 15y ago

> Why can't we just have unlimited for wire-based services? Because routers and trunk circuits can't handle unlimited amounts of traffic.

mikeash 15y ago

Wire-based services suffer from contention as well, just at a much higher usage than wireless services. A provider's costs to serve you are largely fixed. A sane bill will have a large fixed cost plus a variable cost for usage. For example, rather than the fixed ~$45/month I pay to Comcast, I'd expect to pay something like $30/month for the connection itself, then another $15 (or perhaps more, since I'm probably a heavier user than the average) for bandwidth. We manage to get by without fixed bills for gasoline, food, electricity, water, etc., what makes internet special where you absolutely need it to be consistent?

sukuriant 15y ago
I have no stats, but gasoline, food, electricity and water are, generally, a constant price and value. I suspect internet usage, especially if a person hosts a website/dedicated video game server would vary considerably month to month. Statistics need to be taken to validate/invalidate my speculation; but, I imagine when I was on 35/35 FiOS and 25/25(20/20?) FiOS beforehand, my internet fluctuated on the order of 10s, 20s or even 50s of GBs a month.
- mikeash 15y ago
  My electricity bill varies by a factor of 4 over the course of a year, since the bulk of my electricity use in winter and summer is heating and cooling. This is true of a lot of people I've talked to, and they all get by fine just the same. People who host web sites or dedicated video game servers are usually already paying for usage. Some hosts offer "unlimited" plans but most charge for bandwidth. Somehow they survive. Let's say your internet fluctuated by 50GB/month. Comcast is currently effectively charging me 20 cents/GB right now (~$50/month with 250GB cap). Even if this rate doubled under some hypothetical pay for usage plan, you're talking about fluctuations on the order of $20/month. If you can't tolerate that then you probably have bigger financial problems to worry about. Recall that the current situation with most ISPs is not actually unlimited. It's just that when you exceed their arbitrary and usually private limits, instead of charging you more, they make your connection stop working or they fire you as a customer. (With Comcast, if you exceed 250GB in one month, they warn you. If you do it again, they fire you.) Having your bill go up for additional usage is better, not worse, than having your connection stop working altogether.
bryanlarsen 15y ago
For wired lines, he provider does not pay for usage, it pays for a certain sized pipe. So if you use a terabyte of data in a month but all of it comes at off-peak times, but your neighbour uses 10 gigabytes a month but always does it during the peak evening period, your neighbour costs the provider more than you do.
- mikeash 15y ago
  If the provider did not pay for usage, then why would they care how much you use in a given month? And yet, wired internet providers are demonstrably upset if you use "too much", with some even having official policies of kicking you off their network if you do it consistently. Ultimately capacity is the limiting factor, but the way capacity is managed is to charge people to use it. Your ISP is charged by the byte for its connections to other ISPs. You're absolutely correct that usage patterns greatly impact the cost of usage, but simply charging by the byte is a good approximation. A more sophisticated arrangement might have different prices at different times of day (this is already common for electricity) but so far it doesn't appear that this is necessary.