4 ms·
To your last point, the problem with a subscription service (any subscription service) is that the more it's used, the less its profit margins. A company that i
by dclowd9901 12y ago
To your last point, the problem with a subscription service (any subscription service) is that the more it's used, the less its profit margins. A company that is subscription based actually has an interest in their customers using the service as little as possible. It's completely backward (see: gyms, insurance, etc.)
The only way to incentivize a company to provide the best service possible is to tie the use of the service to its cost. I wouldn't mind paying, say $2/GB for service if it meant that Comcast's incentives were in line.
That would even have an external benefit on creating competition among streaming companies to have the best compression algorithms. Efficiency and speed become directly correlated to the service and its value.
- icebraining 12y agoEvery company has an incentive to provide lower quality goods for an higher price. There's nothing special about ISPs, their quality just includes bandwidth. The way you align the incentives is by having competition, so that the ISPs with bigger pipes gain customers. Paying more would solve nothing, though I'm sure they would tell you otherwise.
- nitrogen 12y ago$2/GB That's a ridiculously high price. You'd pay $2 for every hour of streaming-quality HD video watched, quite a bit more for download-quality HD.
- dclowd9901 12y agoI guess I'm probably an outlier. I don't watch a lot of TV. I was thinking in terms of my current bill, which is about $125/mo for internet and cable, and supplanting all my cable viewing with internet streaming. That's about 60 hours of television (I watch maybe 2 hours a night on the regular). So yeah, I guess it's probably a little high. My main point was that this charging scheme incentivizes companies to provide better service, not set up monopolies or short change you service.
- ghshephard 12y agoI pay $25/14 GB pretty consistently here in Singapore. Ironically, in Singapore, it's cheaper for me to pay for traffic on a pre paid SIM, than it is to pay for it with a pre-paid account. Works out great when we're downloading 50-60 GBytes/month. $100/month gets us 56 gigabytes @ about 20-30 mbits/second.
- nitrogen 12y agoIs wired bandwidth that expensive in Singapore?
- ghshephard 12y agoIt's too slow. Everywhere I go - St. Regis, Fusionopolis, Fraser Place - Lucky to get more than 3 Mbits/second. I have to rely on wireless for performance. Singtel + LTE gives me about 30 Mbits.
- nitrogen 12y agoInteresting. I find it fascinating that your situation seems to be the exact opposite of the US.
- ghshephard 12y agoKeep in mind that I'm staying at Hotels, and they cap their wired service to guests. On the plus side, for $100/month, you've got 56 Gigabytes of bandwidth anywhere in the country. It's refreshing being able to not worry about a wired connection.
- Omniusaspirer 12y ago$2 per gigabyte is absolutely astronomical, the actual cost to major ISP's per gigabyte is literally measured in pennies. I used nearly 2 terabytes last month, so my new bill should be maybe $40 at most. I paid $63, and Comcast just raised me up to $85 3 days ago which I haven't called and bitched about yet. Anyone using <50 gb/month is getting bent over so incredibly hard by the ISPs it's honestly mindblowing.
- NicoJuicy 12y agoCountry: Belgium - ISP: Telenet: 100 gb. / month (included) for 47,5 € monthly (65 $). Extra bandwidth @ 0,5 € (0,7 $) / GB, so it's an additional 1,5 € extra for your ISP, if you want to watch a netflix HD movie (2,3 GB). Don't worry, i know i'm getting bend over :)
- alok-g 12y agoNot questioning, just asking: Could you please cite data source? I would like to understand this better.