TWC and bandwidth caps...
A while ago I posted about Time Warner's attempt to cap internet connections.
Recently, Time Warner had started to count data transfers so that they could institute caps in a couple months, which they would then use to advise people the proper plan they should be on. They ended up scrapping the plan due to outcry from the internet.
First off, I'm personally not averse to caps, my concern (like others) is a matter of pricing. Generally their caps were pretty low, which irked me. Then they were charging something like $1/gig if you went over your allotment, which is on the order of 5-7x what it actually costs them for the data (ignoring potential infrastructure costs, which vary, but not typically by what user X downloads).
I'm not able to find the reference at present, but if I remember correctly, the only plan that I saw that was reasonable was a $15/month 5 gig cap plan with relatively low speed (256kbit down, 64kbit up). For anyone who just checks email or rarely watches video, that's actually a pretty reasonable plan. It's faster than dial-up, always-on, you can get your OS updates, check your email, read your friends' blogs, hit facebook, even post some pictures. For a fairly substantial minority (or even a majority) of internet users, that's probably sufficient for their needs.
For the rest of the plans, I actually wouldn't even argue with caps on a business front. As long as the prices aren't screwing the consumer, caps are not a bad idea. On the other hand, what pisses me off about cell phone billing, which is essentially what bandwidth caps are, is that you pay some flat fee for a limited amount of access per month. You go over, you get charged hefty overage fees. You go under, you don't pay any more...but you also don't pay less. The entire "roll-over" minutes thing is actually a very nice way of doing it, but those that I know with any roll-over minutes have typically maxed them out and lose them on a monthly basis. But if you reduce the cost of your service because users aren't using it (giving people money back instead of roll-over minutes), then people will not use the service in order to save money (which reduces communication, reduces money made by the companies, and ultimately, stifles innovation).
There is no winning in the current marketplace.
The only way for people and companies to win is to change the marketplace. Municipalities can partner with telephone/internet/cable companies to build fiber out to every home and business, throw away everything that doesn't run across the fiber (recycle!), and after a modest 5-year monopoly on the infrastructure (to recoup investments, pay back the municipality for its investments, ...), put the service and maintenance up for bidding. Multiple companies provide their proposed rates, regions vote on their preferred provider, providers are limited in size, and the only people who can be blamed for shitty service is the consumer for choosing a shitty provider.
Corporations should jump on this because it shares the infrastructure build-out risk with government, and people should jump on this because it gets them better service for better prices without the current no-choice vendor monopolies that currently exist. At least with this system, you *choose* your monopoly provider. With standards-based equipment, maintenance costs are reduced. Maintenance can be provided by local service personnel who know the system, and are "contracted" by the company providing the service (which is actually how a lot of cable companies handle it now anyways).
There's absolutely no reason why we aren't sporting 100mbit connections to every major metropolitan area (like Sweden), and 10mbit+ to moderately populated rural areas, except for greed and/or lack of vision. For long-distance last-mile concerns, 802.11n-like spread-spectrum 1m band could get you 50 miles at 10mbit (latency may be high, but it's better than a satellite round-trip).
I'm not the smartest person in the world, but that I've not read of ideas similar to the above astounds me. Telecommunications companies really need to get off their asses.
P.S. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/will-it-lens.html (if you see a "blog" t-shirt, or some brown and orange shoes, a black hoodie, that's me ;) ).
Update: here's a link disucssing the costs and access speed for municipal internet connections... http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-connectivty-in-stockholm-so-much.html
Recently, Time Warner had started to count data transfers so that they could institute caps in a couple months, which they would then use to advise people the proper plan they should be on. They ended up scrapping the plan due to outcry from the internet.
First off, I'm personally not averse to caps, my concern (like others) is a matter of pricing. Generally their caps were pretty low, which irked me. Then they were charging something like $1/gig if you went over your allotment, which is on the order of 5-7x what it actually costs them for the data (ignoring potential infrastructure costs, which vary, but not typically by what user X downloads).
I'm not able to find the reference at present, but if I remember correctly, the only plan that I saw that was reasonable was a $15/month 5 gig cap plan with relatively low speed (256kbit down, 64kbit up). For anyone who just checks email or rarely watches video, that's actually a pretty reasonable plan. It's faster than dial-up, always-on, you can get your OS updates, check your email, read your friends' blogs, hit facebook, even post some pictures. For a fairly substantial minority (or even a majority) of internet users, that's probably sufficient for their needs.
For the rest of the plans, I actually wouldn't even argue with caps on a business front. As long as the prices aren't screwing the consumer, caps are not a bad idea. On the other hand, what pisses me off about cell phone billing, which is essentially what bandwidth caps are, is that you pay some flat fee for a limited amount of access per month. You go over, you get charged hefty overage fees. You go under, you don't pay any more...but you also don't pay less. The entire "roll-over" minutes thing is actually a very nice way of doing it, but those that I know with any roll-over minutes have typically maxed them out and lose them on a monthly basis. But if you reduce the cost of your service because users aren't using it (giving people money back instead of roll-over minutes), then people will not use the service in order to save money (which reduces communication, reduces money made by the companies, and ultimately, stifles innovation).
There is no winning in the current marketplace.
The only way for people and companies to win is to change the marketplace. Municipalities can partner with telephone/internet/cable companies to build fiber out to every home and business, throw away everything that doesn't run across the fiber (recycle!), and after a modest 5-year monopoly on the infrastructure (to recoup investments, pay back the municipality for its investments, ...), put the service and maintenance up for bidding. Multiple companies provide their proposed rates, regions vote on their preferred provider, providers are limited in size, and the only people who can be blamed for shitty service is the consumer for choosing a shitty provider.
Corporations should jump on this because it shares the infrastructure build-out risk with government, and people should jump on this because it gets them better service for better prices without the current no-choice vendor monopolies that currently exist. At least with this system, you *choose* your monopoly provider. With standards-based equipment, maintenance costs are reduced. Maintenance can be provided by local service personnel who know the system, and are "contracted" by the company providing the service (which is actually how a lot of cable companies handle it now anyways).
There's absolutely no reason why we aren't sporting 100mbit connections to every major metropolitan area (like Sweden), and 10mbit+ to moderately populated rural areas, except for greed and/or lack of vision. For long-distance last-mile concerns, 802.11n-like spread-spectrum 1m band could get you 50 miles at 10mbit (latency may be high, but it's better than a satellite round-trip).
I'm not the smartest person in the world, but that I've not read of ideas similar to the above astounds me. Telecommunications companies really need to get off their asses.
P.S. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/will-it-lens.html (if you see a "blog" t-shirt, or some brown and orange shoes, a black hoodie, that's me ;) ).
Update: here's a link disucssing the costs and access speed for municipal internet connections... http://cis471.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-connectivty-in-stockholm-so-much.html