The business models on which this stuff is based are full of assumptions that anyone who has been in this business for more than a week knows won't work in the real world.
While most business models require a feedback loop that is frequently missing in Internet businesses (assume traffic characteristics, measure network, correct business model) all of these kinds of tiered service depend on classes of customers and their usage patterns. If I have classes of customer that uses a T1 service differently, it is completely reasonable to sell it differently. For example, if I have a 10 Mb/s cable modem, but *on average* use it like a 28.8kb/s modem, then why should I pay for a full 10 Mb/s of bits that I am not sending/receiving? If I get the 10 Mb/s access but it is engineered to deliver 56k based on my customer class useage patterns, is that fraud? I think not. What if I advertise it as 100 times faster than a standard modem? Still not fraud. Now, if I as a residential cable modem user set up a pay per view web site that makes cool site of the world, I am do not fit the class of customer profile. The key issue in all this is what the provider will do with outliers, and if the prediction of outliers matches the experience of outliers. Another way to look at this is that it is in effect a pay per bit system, that, combined with customer useage assumptions, gives a a tiered service pricing offered over one type of access. Most ISPs do not price their T1 service assuming 100% useage 100% of the time. $35/mo over a T1/ADSL/Cable modem is just an extention of this practice with different assumptions. Eric Carroll eric.carroll@acm.org Tekton Internet Associates