At 09:40 PM 7/14/2014, John Curran wrote:
Myself, I'd call such fees to be uniform,
Ah, but they are not. Smaller providers pay more per IP address than larger ones. And a much larger share of their revenues as the base fee for being "in the club" to start with.
but do recognize that such uniform fees have a disproportionate impact on smaller service providers.
If they were uniform, they would still have a bit of a disproportionate impact, but less so. If they were on a sliding scale, it might be fair. Remember: Our average profit is $5 per customer per month, and our customer base is limited by population. If I were in this business just for the business, I'd find a more profitable business, but I CARE about my community and accept a smaller return on my investment to help folks get connected. (This doesn't mean that I'm a charity, but it does mean I'll never get the profits or the ROI of a large, urban provider.) It would be nice if what I do was also understood and valued by the Internet community at large. --Brett Glass