Re: An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial
Another view from OZ. I've got a plan that is labeled as Unlimited (12G) Cable. 12G/M (12:00:00-23:59:59) 24G/M (00:00:00-12:59:59) (Disappears if the base 12G is used up) Once the 12G is used up it drops to 64k. Every 4th month is free as I also have a telephone with this provider. The cost actually dropped this month which is a free month. Previously the alotted transfer has gone up twice (from memory) with no fee increase. When I got the initial plan there wasn't a differentiation between AM and PM and the the allowance was for the whole 24 hour period. There are plans above and below this one. I can move up at any time in the month and have it take effect straight away (untested) and move down at the end of the current billing cycle. If I have the choice on when to do a high volume operation I do it in the AM (24G period). My father has a 200MB plan which gives him 600MB. His use is basically email only and software updates. The later is what can cause him problems if he doesn't manage his usage correctly. I've a friend that works for the provider in question and he is on their highest plan. He has 4 children and a wife who are all active users and does max out his plan on occasions. The big advanatge of these plans is that the cost is fixed even if I've used up all my alotted transfer. Mark
The big advanatge of these plans is that the cost is fixed even if I've used up all my alotted transfer.
This is the success of systems that implement rate limiting (not additional charging) once a specified ceiling has been reached. It provides some fiscal security that you're not going to blow out your upper limit. (I've seen some horrendous bills in the face of 'overage' caused by virus/drone infections, spammers hitting mailservers run on SME broadband links, etc etc.) Both .nz and .au have implemented this. No reason that .us can't do the same? Heck were I in the USA and I had to choose between 'flat rate' and some figure in the vicinity of 10-15GB/month then 'rate limiting' (especially then including the option to buy more bandwidth as a one-off), the latter would win hands down. Flat rate (in my world) often includes port-based and/or time based throughput limiting that's designed to prevent the ISP from being ground to a halt by P2P during peak hours, etc.... I'd rather have a (reasonable) monthly limit for an affordable price, thanks. Mark. (In .nz)
I think a rate limited plan would appeal to most customers as it would give them a fixed monthly budget item. But I am pretty sure this will not happen in the US based on experiences with the broadband by cell providers who prefer a 'bill-by-byte' method with no mechanism to stop loss in the event of a runaway process or compromised host It seems the market has lost it's taste for a known revenue stream with known costs and profits in exchange for a Vegas go for broke growth at all costs mentality. And too often the vendor does go broke it seems the market has lost a degree of rationality to the point where ISP are 'firing' customers who are using 'too many' resources instead of trying to help them fix their issue or if they really are using all those bits finding a mutually beneficial method of profiting from them. Mark Foster wrote:
The big advanatge of these plans is that the cost is fixed even if I've used up all my alotted transfer.
This is the success of systems that implement rate limiting (not additional charging) once a specified ceiling has been reached.
It provides some fiscal security that you're not going to blow out your upper limit. (I've seen some horrendous bills in the face of 'overage' caused by virus/drone infections, spammers hitting mailservers run on SME broadband links, etc etc.)
Both .nz and .au have implemented this. No reason that .us can't do the same?
Heck were I in the USA and I had to choose between 'flat rate' and some figure in the vicinity of 10-15GB/month then 'rate limiting' (especially then including the option to buy more bandwidth as a one-off), the latter would win hands down. Flat rate (in my world) often includes port-based and/or time based throughput limiting that's designed to prevent the ISP from being ground to a halt by P2P during peak hours, etc....
I'd rather have a (reasonable) monthly limit for an affordable price, thanks.
Mark. (In .nz)
participants (3)
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Mark Foster -
Mark_Andrews＠isc.org -
Scott McGrath