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Honest question; if a very naive one (Since I haven't thought about it very hard...) But why wouldn't a very simplistic metering be acceptable by that definitio

Honest question; if a very naive one (Since I haven't thought about it very hard...) But why wouldn't a very simplistic metering be acceptable by that definition? I'd be totally fine having my internet metered, if the costs were commensurate to the service provided, and the service was as regular as other metered services (e.g. water/power) I've heard why the common carrier argument isn't "the best solution", but I don't fully understand why metering hasn't been championed as a way to have the two sides (consumers and the companies) come to some common ground, or at least "call the bluff" of the companies using justifications like the above ("people use internet differently", "people will never use this amount"); so why not just see, and charge accordingly?

Solarsail 12y ago
Metering is used in Canada. Many have criticized the policy as backwards, unfair, and hampering creativity compared to other countries. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/a-metered-internet-is-a-regulatory-failure/article565228/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/a-metere... Tho I do agree that, at a first glance, it seems to have extremely good correlation with the cost of the service provided.
- existencebox 12y ago
  They present a counterargument of the "heavy user", dismiss it, and don't seem to explain why it's not a fair example of why metering is useful. It seems that the main complaint of the article is simply that the overage charges are insane, as they are for cell. I agree. I also think that it's "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" to suggest an entire reversal of policy (when observing what unmetered use results in via the US) when a more iterative response would seem to be, "why don't we regulate costs to ensure that this pseudo-utility is actually accessable at a basic level (that grows with the times) to all people?" I'll have to tag another question on here, but is there any system in place for utilities to prevent, say, my water company for charging me 300$ per gallon? I'd assume there's simply some degree of regulation, why not apply that fix elsewhere; have a "hybrid utility" rather than treating it as all black and white.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Utility rates are highly regulated. They can only charge what a government utility commission allows them to charge. Every few years, they generally plead the case to raise rates slightly, so they can keep up with rising costs or inflation.
Zigurd 12y ago
It's called the Insurance Effect. People are willing to pay more for flat rate, which includes "carrying" high volume users, to insure against bill shock if their usage patterns change. Humans are bad at estimating bandwidth use, and pricing that removes that requirement has real value.
- _greim_ 12y ago
  It may be hard to predict bandwidth usage, but electricity, gas, and water aren't perfectly predictable either, and unlike bandwidth we're incentivized to estimate them and to self-throttle to the extent reasonable (e.g. turn the thermostat down at night).
- saurik 12y ago
  "Insurance" is a form of risk mitigation. The reality of bandwidth is that we know someone who likes using FaceTime, or who has a Netflix subscription, is going to use more bandwidth than someone else. Sure: it makes sense if you aren't certain how large a web page will be to buy insurance on it, but you don't want to be in the same insurance bracket as a true "heavy user": I am happy to take part in a pool where everyone subsidizes the risk of accidental trauma, but I know someone who insists on smoking is going to increase their health costs, and they should be forced to take on that increased burden. This is especially evident when the playing field changes: the cost of insurance for all users goes up dramatically when something like FaceTime or Netflix is released, because the people using it are using dramatically more bandwidth than the people who aren't. If the bandwidth companies said "ok, thanks to Apple's FaceTime service, everyone's connection is now twice as expensive even if you don't own Apple hardware", people would be pissed. This is why insurance charges people differently for their inherent risk, and why you can't use insurance as a metaphor here (well, unless you want to make the opposite argument ;P).
_greim_ 12y ago
> why wouldn't a very simplistic metering be acceptable by that definition? It would be perfectly acceptable (assuming I've understood you). I think the reason nobody is championing it is twofold, ISPs don't like it because it would make them that much more utility-like, which they strenuously want to avoid. Active internet users don't like it because their bandwidth is largely subsidized by less-active subscribers, and leveling the playing field would be a net loss for them. To me it looks like pure selfishness on both accounts.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Active internet users don't like metered billing because they understand it is a ruse. If I use my connection at full capacity all day long, except during the evening prime time, I might rack up several TB of data each month. I'm not causing any network congestion or costing the ISP any money though. The basic user who 'only' streams several shows on Netflix each evening might only use several dozen GB of data each month, but they cost the ISP much more in peak bandwidth congestion.
  - M2Ys4U 12y ago
    So have a peak rate and an off-peak rate. That's exactly what my ISP (Andrews and Arnold[0]) does. I pay for a specific number of 'units' which are consumed faster at peak times (09:00-18:00) than at all other times. A&A's policy[1] is to never be the bottleneck in the network and they also kick up a stink with their transit providers (mainly BT) when they detect a problem (which is very often, as they monitor their network's health closely). They even publish statistics[2] on dropped packets classified by their uplink - for instance over the last 28 days they have a 98.48% success rate at a 1-second granularity one of BT's backhauls, and 100% on TalkTalk's backhaul. They do work out to be more expensive than other ISPs (I pay ~£33 a month for a 40mbit FTTC connection with 4 units) but you pay for a good service and competence. [0] http://aaisp.net.uk/ http://aaisp.net.uk/ [1] http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-speed.html http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-speed.html [2] http://clueless.aa.net.uk/linkreport.cgi http://clueless.aa.net.uk/linkreport.cgi
SkynetSystems 12y ago
No because this is artificial scarcity. It does not cost these big internet service providers a single dime more to serve up Netflix than it does to serve up Wikipedia pages. The issue here is the relentless corporate greed that is going to make them continue to squeeze customers and content providers to get more and more profits without offering more service. After the bandwidth caps and the Netflix (content provider) extortions, they will find new reasons to force people to pay more money for the existing internet service they have always been using. This is what happens when you have no competition and you want profits going up year after year. The only cure is for the government to step in and slap some regulations down.

Solarsail 12y ago

Metering is used in Canada. Many have criticized the policy as backwards, unfair, and hampering creativity compared to other countries. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/a-metered-internet-is-a-regulatory-failure/article565228/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/a-metere... Tho I do agree that, at a first glance, it seems to have extremely good correlation with the cost of the service provided.

existencebox 12y ago
They present a counterargument of the "heavy user", dismiss it, and don't seem to explain why it's not a fair example of why metering is useful. It seems that the main complaint of the article is simply that the overage charges are insane, as they are for cell. I agree. I also think that it's "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" to suggest an entire reversal of policy (when observing what unmetered use results in via the US) when a more iterative response would seem to be, "why don't we regulate costs to ensure that this pseudo-utility is actually accessable at a basic level (that grows with the times) to all people?" I'll have to tag another question on here, but is there any system in place for utilities to prevent, say, my water company for charging me 300$ per gallon? I'd assume there's simply some degree of regulation, why not apply that fix elsewhere; have a "hybrid utility" rather than treating it as all black and white.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Utility rates are highly regulated. They can only charge what a government utility commission allows them to charge. Every few years, they generally plead the case to raise rates slightly, so they can keep up with rising costs or inflation.

Zigurd 12y ago

It's called the Insurance Effect. People are willing to pay more for flat rate, which includes "carrying" high volume users, to insure against bill shock if their usage patterns change. Humans are bad at estimating bandwidth use, and pricing that removes that requirement has real value.

_greim_ 12y ago
It may be hard to predict bandwidth usage, but electricity, gas, and water aren't perfectly predictable either, and unlike bandwidth we're incentivized to estimate them and to self-throttle to the extent reasonable (e.g. turn the thermostat down at night).
saurik 12y ago
"Insurance" is a form of risk mitigation. The reality of bandwidth is that we know someone who likes using FaceTime, or who has a Netflix subscription, is going to use more bandwidth than someone else. Sure: it makes sense if you aren't certain how large a web page will be to buy insurance on it, but you don't want to be in the same insurance bracket as a true "heavy user": I am happy to take part in a pool where everyone subsidizes the risk of accidental trauma, but I know someone who insists on smoking is going to increase their health costs, and they should be forced to take on that increased burden. This is especially evident when the playing field changes: the cost of insurance for all users goes up dramatically when something like FaceTime or Netflix is released, because the people using it are using dramatically more bandwidth than the people who aren't. If the bandwidth companies said "ok, thanks to Apple's FaceTime service, everyone's connection is now twice as expensive even if you don't own Apple hardware", people would be pissed. This is why insurance charges people differently for their inherent risk, and why you can't use insurance as a metaphor here (well, unless you want to make the opposite argument ;P).

_greim_ 12y ago

> why wouldn't a very simplistic metering be acceptable by that definition? It would be perfectly acceptable (assuming I've understood you). I think the reason nobody is championing it is twofold, ISPs don't like it because it would make them that much more utility-like, which they strenuously want to avoid. Active internet users don't like it because their bandwidth is largely subsidized by less-active subscribers, and leveling the playing field would be a net loss for them. To me it looks like pure selfishness on both accounts.

dublinben 12y ago
Active internet users don't like metered billing because they understand it is a ruse. If I use my connection at full capacity all day long, except during the evening prime time, I might rack up several TB of data each month. I'm not causing any network congestion or costing the ISP any money though. The basic user who 'only' streams several shows on Netflix each evening might only use several dozen GB of data each month, but they cost the ISP much more in peak bandwidth congestion.
- M2Ys4U 12y ago
  So have a peak rate and an off-peak rate. That's exactly what my ISP (Andrews and Arnold[0]) does. I pay for a specific number of 'units' which are consumed faster at peak times (09:00-18:00) than at all other times. A&A's policy[1] is to never be the bottleneck in the network and they also kick up a stink with their transit providers (mainly BT) when they detect a problem (which is very often, as they monitor their network's health closely). They even publish statistics[2] on dropped packets classified by their uplink - for instance over the last 28 days they have a 98.48% success rate at a 1-second granularity one of BT's backhauls, and 100% on TalkTalk's backhaul. They do work out to be more expensive than other ISPs (I pay ~£33 a month for a 40mbit FTTC connection with 4 units) but you pay for a good service and competence. [0] http://aaisp.net.uk/ http://aaisp.net.uk/ [1] http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-speed.html http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-speed.html [2] http://clueless.aa.net.uk/linkreport.cgi http://clueless.aa.net.uk/linkreport.cgi

SkynetSystems 12y ago

No because this is artificial scarcity. It does not cost these big internet service providers a single dime more to serve up Netflix than it does to serve up Wikipedia pages. The issue here is the relentless corporate greed that is going to make them continue to squeeze customers and content providers to get more and more profits without offering more service. After the bandwidth caps and the Netflix (content provider) extortions, they will find new reasons to force people to pay more money for the existing internet service they have always been using. This is what happens when you have no competition and you want profits going up year after year. The only cure is for the government to step in and slap some regulations down.