5 ms·

I've previously interned at one of the mentioned Cable Companies, and I see both sides. The solution is to make it 'capitalistic'. Change all of our internet

I've previously interned at one of the mentioned Cable Companies, and I see both sides. The solution is to make it 'capitalistic'. Change all of our internet contracts from Unlimited (up to 'x' GB/month), to a simple $/gb cost. It would be in the ISPs best interest to provide their customers the fastest internet connection as possible. E.g, if a customer can stream a 4k video vs SD then the ISP would make more money per unit time. Think of it this way, if comcast charges $0.25/GB, and a netflix SD show is say 1GB and HD is 4GB, then comcast grosses $1 for HD and $.25 for SD for the same customer streaming request. Over time its likely the price per GB would decrease, just like it has for cellular. On a more evil side, this would also stop chord cutters. Pirating content is no longer 'free', and Netflix would cost significantly more than $10/month ($10/month + 'x'GB * $/GB). As for what rates to expect, if comcast charges in ATL $30-55 for 300GB, that'd be about $.10/GB to $.20/GB. As for speed tiers in a $/gb system, your guess is as good as mine.

seehafer 12y ago
How does changing plans from unlimited to metered data make them more 'capitalistic'? An example of making things more capitalistic would be to make illegal the municipal contracts granting monopolies on last mile service.
- cobookman 12y ago
  In an unlimited system, a customer which uses 10GB/month grosses the company the same amount as a customer who uses 1TB/month. Going to a metered system, people who use more bandwidth are charged more. Technically ISPs don't pay for bandwidth, but for a 'x' GBps link. But our electric companies do the same, they pay for 'x' Kw/h (a power plant can only output so much electricity per hour). >...make illegal the municipal contracts granting monopolies on last mile service. Thats a very hard peice of legislation to pass. I'm not even sure if Google Fiber would agree to this. Even if this legislation passed, would that fix our net neutrality rules? Moving to a metered system gets rid of most of the ISPs arguments against net neutrality....all of them except having a company pay for your bandwidth.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    > Thats a very hard peice of legislation to pass. That may be so. But all of Europe manage to go from monopoly telcos to a system with guaranteed access for ISPs to the last mile. > Moving to a metered system gets rid of most of the ISPs arguments against net neutrality.. In my experience, from having run an ISP: It also massively curtails usage, to the extent that it is a net negative for the ISPs because users become less dependent on you, yet don't pay you as much. There's a reason why ISPs went to "unlimited" contracts: If users have to meter their usage, they tend to turn out to be willing to pay less, because their internet connection is suddenly something where they have to think about the money they spend from day to day, rather than something that's just a fixed "thing" in the background they don't think about. People are willing to pay extra for "unlimited" to not have to think about it, and when they don't think about it, they don't cancel.
    - cobookman 12y ago
      >It also massively curtails usage, to the extent that it is a net negative for the ISPs I think that's the reason why Comcast wants to do the 300GB 'unlimited' with a $10/50GB overage charge. As they get the best of both worlds. The issue with having a 'hybrid' plan is that to Comcast's finance department they still view it as a fixed gross per customer. Where-as with metered usage, the finance department would hopefully realize that the bigger the pipes the greater the potential for $$$. In regards to peering, Comcast currently has no incentive to upgrade there peering exchange points. But in a metered system, they have a lot of money to gain for upgrading the exchange points. Giving level 3 and Comcast incentives to upgrade peering exchanges. (Today its only Level 3 who benefits).
runeks 12y ago
Interesting suggestion. I've often thought about this. What I hear (I'm not very knowledgeable in this field) is that somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?). But consumers prefer to know how much they will pay each month, and so they get that -- a flat rate service. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its customers are not aligned. It's a bit like if you rent a car and the price you pay is proportional to the top speed of the car, but the expenses of the car hire company is proportional to how many miles you drive. Where I live, we're currently in the process of wiring up the apartment complex to FTTP (fiber to the buildings and copper from the basement up to the apartments). I'm in charge of the process, and I've thought about asking whether I can get an unlimited connection speed, but pay per GB. I haven't asked yet, but I think I might prefer this over a flat rate price per month. When I use the connection I pay, and it's blazingly fast, and when I don't use it it's free. Contrasted with being slow when I use it, and also paying when I don't use it.
- wmf 12y ago
  somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?) No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its customers are not aligned. More like the ISP's expenses are proportional to aggregate peak demand, but yeah, it's not aligned.
  - runeks 12y ago
    > No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. When I went around asking for a price for a shared connection to out apartment complex, I was asked how many tenants we had. And the reason -- I was told -- that they asked for this, was that the more tenants the more traffic consumed. So it seems to me that somewhere, someone is paying for traffic. Or else I don't understand.
army 12y ago
I don't think the cable companies have much of a side. I think a large part of the problem is complacency about improving service on the cable companies' side rather than active malfeasance: they simply don't have to work very hard to retain customers since the local markets are monopolies or small, stable, oligopolies. There just needs to be some more competition to hold their feet to the fire.
mullingitover 12y ago
> "On a more evil side, this would also stop chord [sic] cutters. Pirating content is no longer 'free', and Netflix would cost significantly more than $10/month ($10/month + 'x'GB * $/GB)." Maybe you've been living under a rock, but ISPs who are also cable television providers are very interested in caps, arguably to protect their cable television business. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2155286/comcast-exec-says-bandwidth-caps-for-all-to-return-within-five-years.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2155286/comcast-exec-says-ban... This whole debate about who's supposed to pay for peering is smoke and mirrors. The truth is that cable companies have a conflict of interest between their two businesses, and they're attacking the internet side to protect their cable tv business. End of story.

seehafer 12y ago

How does changing plans from unlimited to metered data make them more 'capitalistic'? An example of making things more capitalistic would be to make illegal the municipal contracts granting monopolies on last mile service.

cobookman 12y ago
In an unlimited system, a customer which uses 10GB/month grosses the company the same amount as a customer who uses 1TB/month. Going to a metered system, people who use more bandwidth are charged more. Technically ISPs don't pay for bandwidth, but for a 'x' GBps link. But our electric companies do the same, they pay for 'x' Kw/h (a power plant can only output so much electricity per hour). >...make illegal the municipal contracts granting monopolies on last mile service. Thats a very hard peice of legislation to pass. I'm not even sure if Google Fiber would agree to this. Even if this legislation passed, would that fix our net neutrality rules? Moving to a metered system gets rid of most of the ISPs arguments against net neutrality....all of them except having a company pay for your bandwidth.
- vidarh 12y ago
  > Thats a very hard peice of legislation to pass. That may be so. But all of Europe manage to go from monopoly telcos to a system with guaranteed access for ISPs to the last mile. > Moving to a metered system gets rid of most of the ISPs arguments against net neutrality.. In my experience, from having run an ISP: It also massively curtails usage, to the extent that it is a net negative for the ISPs because users become less dependent on you, yet don't pay you as much. There's a reason why ISPs went to "unlimited" contracts: If users have to meter their usage, they tend to turn out to be willing to pay less, because their internet connection is suddenly something where they have to think about the money they spend from day to day, rather than something that's just a fixed "thing" in the background they don't think about. People are willing to pay extra for "unlimited" to not have to think about it, and when they don't think about it, they don't cancel.
  - cobookman 12y ago
    >It also massively curtails usage, to the extent that it is a net negative for the ISPs I think that's the reason why Comcast wants to do the 300GB 'unlimited' with a $10/50GB overage charge. As they get the best of both worlds. The issue with having a 'hybrid' plan is that to Comcast's finance department they still view it as a fixed gross per customer. Where-as with metered usage, the finance department would hopefully realize that the bigger the pipes the greater the potential for $$$. In regards to peering, Comcast currently has no incentive to upgrade there peering exchange points. But in a metered system, they have a lot of money to gain for upgrading the exchange points. Giving level 3 and Comcast incentives to upgrade peering exchanges. (Today its only Level 3 who benefits).

runeks 12y ago

Interesting suggestion. I've often thought about this. What I hear (I'm not very knowledgeable in this field) is that somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?). But consumers prefer to know how much they will pay each month, and so they get that -- a flat rate service. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its customers are not aligned. It's a bit like if you rent a car and the price you pay is proportional to the top speed of the car, but the expenses of the car hire company is proportional to how many miles you drive. Where I live, we're currently in the process of wiring up the apartment complex to FTTP (fiber to the buildings and copper from the basement up to the apartments). I'm in charge of the process, and I've thought about asking whether I can get an unlimited connection speed, but pay per GB. I haven't asked yet, but I think I might prefer this over a flat rate price per month. When I use the connection I pay, and it's blazingly fast, and when I don't use it it's free. Contrasted with being slow when I use it, and also paying when I don't use it.

wmf 12y ago
somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?) No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its customers are not aligned. More like the ISP's expenses are proportional to aggregate peak demand, but yeah, it's not aligned.
- runeks 12y ago
  > No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. When I went around asking for a price for a shared connection to out apartment complex, I was asked how many tenants we had. And the reason -- I was told -- that they asked for this, was that the more tenants the more traffic consumed. So it seems to me that somewhere, someone is paying for traffic. Or else I don't understand.

army 12y ago

I don't think the cable companies have much of a side. I think a large part of the problem is complacency about improving service on the cable companies' side rather than active malfeasance: they simply don't have to work very hard to retain customers since the local markets are monopolies or small, stable, oligopolies. There just needs to be some more competition to hold their feet to the fire.

mullingitover 12y ago

> "On a more evil side, this would also stop chord [sic] cutters. Pirating content is no longer 'free', and Netflix would cost significantly more than $10/month ($10/month + 'x'GB * $/GB)." Maybe you've been living under a rock, but ISPs who are also cable television providers are very interested in caps, arguably to protect their cable television business. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2155286/comcast-exec-says-bandwidth-caps-for-all-to-return-within-five-years.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2155286/comcast-exec-says-ban... This whole debate about who's supposed to pay for peering is smoke and mirrors. The truth is that cable companies have a conflict of interest between their two businesses, and they're attacking the internet side to protect their cable tv business. End of story.