4 ms·

Harsh reality time: 2 choices. Either Netflix ponies up, or everyone has to pay per GB to their ISPs. I honestly don't think the average consumer wants to

Harsh reality time: 2 choices. Either Netflix ponies up, or everyone has to pay per GB to their ISPs. I honestly don't think the average consumer wants to be constantly tracking how much BW they're using per website. That might work for a single person cell phone, but doesn't work for a family.

anilgulecha 13y ago
each person doesn't have to track their own usage -- ISPs can provide simple access on how much the account has used up. Single source.
Qantourisc 13y ago
We have had limited GB in our country with a family for years. It's works, it's as simple as occasionally checking how-much you have left, or just going over the limit (that happens to). You learn how much you can download, and to not waste it. It's a bit like the water bill, you can leave it open all day, but you shouldn't.
samsolomon 13y ago
Or you pay up to a limit. I don't have a choice, but to pay for Comcast, and they changed my plan from Unlimited to 300GB/mo.
thejosh 13y ago
Apart from countries that do this, such as Australia, your ISP shows how much you have used. Atleast in Australia now you can get quite meaty plans (1TB+ a month) for "cheap".
nknighthb 13y ago
That's fine. Since the problem isn't last-mile, but interconnection, the per-GB cost is miniscule. I'll estimate $0.025/GB, but that's way too high, just to avoid getting to the point where one might realistically quibble over the real cost. I could stream 10mbps video 24 hours/day for 30 days and my bill at $0.025/GB will be about $80 for bandwidth, on top of the ~$40 I pay for my existing connection, which we'll just assume we'll let the cable companies continue to gouge me on. If I'm streaming high-quality HD video 24/7, I can live with a $120 Internet bill. I'm not actually doing that, of course. In reality, even I (combined with 4 other family members on the same connection who aren't power users, but do watch some streaming video and otherwise make fairly active use of my connection) rarely use more than ~500GB/month. Even if I used a terabyte every month, it'd be about $25 extra. Meh. In the end, it's not consumers that don't want this. It's the cable companies. They hate the idea, because it puts front and center the fact that they are and should be just a dumb pipe. They don't provide content, they provide a conduit. This is exactly the public perception that they fear.
- tzs 13y ago
  > That's fine. Since the problem isn't last-mile, but interconnection, the per-GB cost is miniscule. I'll estimate $0.025/GB, but that's way too high, just to avoid getting to the point where one might realistically quibble over the real cost. That's half the per-GB cost that Amazon and Microsoft charge for S3 and Azure transfers to the internet for those customers using the highest volume below the "call for pricing" level, and so get the lowest published rate. I don't offhand see any reason to expect Amazon and S3 to be paying more for bandwidth than last-mile providers do, nor for them to be marking it up to their customers more. Are you sure $0.025/GB is too high?
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    Very, very sure. I can pay far, far less than AWS and Microsoft charge for bandwidth in any US datacenter managing my own equipment. Meanwhile, HN-darling Digital Ocean charges their VPS customers just $0.02/GB on overage. That's right, for overage above the 1-9TB they include with their plans, DO charges less than I'm estimating the cost to be for massive providers to exchange traffic at far larger and more cost-effective scales. Linode charges $0.10/GB, and that's still less than AWS charges for the first 10TB. And again, that's after the 3-20(!)TB Linode's plans include in the base cost. Bandwidth is cheap. The US has all the fiber capacity between POPs that it needs. Adding or upgrading interconnects between Comcast and Cogent/Level3/whoever is not laying fiber across the countryside, it's buying switches or turning on ports and running cables from one cage in a datacenter to another cage in the same friggin' datacenter.

anilgulecha 13y ago

each person doesn't have to track their own usage -- ISPs can provide simple access on how much the account has used up. Single source.

Qantourisc 13y ago

We have had limited GB in our country with a family for years. It's works, it's as simple as occasionally checking how-much you have left, or just going over the limit (that happens to). You learn how much you can download, and to not waste it. It's a bit like the water bill, you can leave it open all day, but you shouldn't.

samsolomon 13y ago

Or you pay up to a limit. I don't have a choice, but to pay for Comcast, and they changed my plan from Unlimited to 300GB/mo.

thejosh 13y ago

Apart from countries that do this, such as Australia, your ISP shows how much you have used. Atleast in Australia now you can get quite meaty plans (1TB+ a month) for "cheap".

nknighthb 13y ago

That's fine. Since the problem isn't last-mile, but interconnection, the per-GB cost is miniscule. I'll estimate $0.025/GB, but that's way too high, just to avoid getting to the point where one might realistically quibble over the real cost. I could stream 10mbps video 24 hours/day for 30 days and my bill at $0.025/GB will be about $80 for bandwidth, on top of the ~$40 I pay for my existing connection, which we'll just assume we'll let the cable companies continue to gouge me on. If I'm streaming high-quality HD video 24/7, I can live with a $120 Internet bill. I'm not actually doing that, of course. In reality, even I (combined with 4 other family members on the same connection who aren't power users, but do watch some streaming video and otherwise make fairly active use of my connection) rarely use more than ~500GB/month. Even if I used a terabyte every month, it'd be about $25 extra. Meh. In the end, it's not consumers that don't want this. It's the cable companies. They hate the idea, because it puts front and center the fact that they are and should be just a dumb pipe. They don't provide content, they provide a conduit. This is exactly the public perception that they fear.

tzs 13y ago
> That's fine. Since the problem isn't last-mile, but interconnection, the per-GB cost is miniscule. I'll estimate $0.025/GB, but that's way too high, just to avoid getting to the point where one might realistically quibble over the real cost. That's half the per-GB cost that Amazon and Microsoft charge for S3 and Azure transfers to the internet for those customers using the highest volume below the "call for pricing" level, and so get the lowest published rate. I don't offhand see any reason to expect Amazon and S3 to be paying more for bandwidth than last-mile providers do, nor for them to be marking it up to their customers more. Are you sure $0.025/GB is too high?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Very, very sure. I can pay far, far less than AWS and Microsoft charge for bandwidth in any US datacenter managing my own equipment. Meanwhile, HN-darling Digital Ocean charges their VPS customers just $0.02/GB on overage. That's right, for overage above the 1-9TB they include with their plans, DO charges less than I'm estimating the cost to be for massive providers to exchange traffic at far larger and more cost-effective scales. Linode charges $0.10/GB, and that's still less than AWS charges for the first 10TB. And again, that's after the 3-20(!)TB Linode's plans include in the base cost. Bandwidth is cheap. The US has all the fiber capacity between POPs that it needs. Adding or upgrading interconnects between Comcast and Cogent/Level3/whoever is not laying fiber across the countryside, it's buying switches or turning on ports and running cables from one cage in a datacenter to another cage in the same friggin' datacenter.