Comments on: Metered Internet Is OK But Won’t Work

By: Svetlana Gladkova

Svetlana Gladkova — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:40:55 +0000

Add a post on the same topic to your schedule and we will resume the discussion in half a year

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:00:08 +0000

I think it will be interesting to look back on this debate in 6 months.

By: Svetlana Gladkova

Svetlana Gladkova — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:35:27 +0000

Yes, that's what I told in a FriendFeed discussion around this comment – your attitude towards metered internet depends only on how “spoiled” you are by the services you used to get from your ISP

By: Maggy Young

Maggy Young — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:49:34 +0000

In response to GetaClue, do we really want the government to nationalize the internet ? Then it will be another crucial aspect of everyone's life which will be owned & controlled & influenced by the government. A government controlled internet ? Think about all the possible ramifications for political control & you make Soviet Russia seem like a democracy. Whatever the outcome, I think this is not the road we want to go down.
Re. metering, now the net has become a utility much like electric, gas, water, metering is a reasonable discussion point. In UK we have, or did have, ISP payment options for restricted or unlimited access. To me this makes sense, running as a simple 2 tier system which relates payment to use/benefit. It enables users who only use the net occasionally eg. mainly for emails to family & the occasional search, to have the facility at a sizeable discount to extensive users. Think particularly of the old & the sick.
And to GetaClue, can't you see the government levying heavy taxes on use once it owned the internet ? A wonderful opportunity for a new tax which would be paid by nearly all citizens & it could increase the amount annually & everyone would, in practice, have to stick with it & pay it. Plenty of excuses from budget defecit to Iraq War.
I think the emphasis should maybe be less on metering or otherwise, but on keeping ISP prices low, which is helped by a competitive environment.

By: Tim Scheer

Tim Scheer — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:23:36 +0000

There will always be at least one or two remaining companies that will always stick with their “unlimited” or “flat” rates.

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:44:22 +0000

I agree. If anything this article (and mostly the comments) have taught me that metering when looked at broadly is an extremely complex issue.

I think what makes America different is that we've lived under unlimited service plans for so long, and our use patterns are based on unlimited, free-flowing access.

In other parts of the world where unlimited access has never been common, this doesn't (and shouldn't') seem like a big deal.

Thanks as always Lana!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:00:30 +0000

Sadly South Africa has been 'metered' since… welll… forever. Look at the sat-3 cable running up the coast and you'll realise why, it has *very* little bandwidth.

Depending on what you mean by 'working', it already is working for the corporates (Telkom and cronies). It's only as for consumers that it doesn't work… and that doesn't really count for much

By: Svetlana Gladkova

Svetlana Gladkova — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:43:33 +0000

Steve, is not it funny how you talk about people and their way of using the Internet but refer not to the people in general but mainly to the people in the US. You will be surprised but in some countries people still pay based on the usage and unlimited service plans are more of a privilege For example, here in Russia (not in Moscow, the situation in the capital is better) the ISPs only recently started to offer unlimited plans – and until then heavy users like me used to pay very huge bills here. So metered internet does work in some places – it just depends on what your ISPs actually want to offer.

By: avarus

avarus — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:38:38 +0000

a real dedicated 100mbit line is at 2000-3000 EUR/month here (includes the traffic as well) . So go get it!

In Germany most providers offer unmetered plans but all countries around germany don't and I only believe this works in germany because they still have the leecher under some control or just enough bandwidth still available .

You'll get an unmetered 16/1 line for around 40 EUR here (including telephone flatrate). Two years ago I paid 49 EUR for a 2/0,386 line (without telephone flatrate).

Well, I still don't get the panic about comcast, at&t etc…

You can always get an unmetered access to the internet…it's just a matter of $$$ and if you are not willing to pay you can just change the provider as you just wrote in your text.

Ok, that's it, I'm done .

Btw.: nice blog.

By: couchmonster

couchmonster — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:42:26 +0000

Metering works as long as there is plenty of competition. New Zealand used to have very little competition, and very high metered bandwidth prices. Thankfully this has dropped in the last few years with increased competition - with one ISP (xnet.co.nz) simply offering a base fee of about $15-40 (depending on the up/down speed of your line) and then less than $1 per Gb. (figured adjusted to US$)

I've since moved to Australia, and if you're happy to take an 80/20 offpeak/peak split with your bandwidth bill (ie. 80% of your 'cap' is allocated for use between 2am and 10am) you can get over 100Gb/month for around $45 (ADSL2+, slow upload speeds, p2p traffic might be rate limited at peak times)

If you're an email only type person, I think you can get a FREE 2Gb/month connection if you switch your cellphone over to Virgin. (and then $10/Gb over that or something ridiculous - thats where they make the money)

Personally I pay around $150/month for 90Gb down with Internode - this is a business class connection with no p2p rate limiting and UNLIMITED upload at 2Mbit. Once I split the cost with my flatmate it's a reasonable figure to pay each, and we know we have the bandwidth on hand whenever we need it.

User pays systems work, especially when the bandwidth costs come down to a negligible level.

For me, it's just normal to shell out US$60-80 per month for my internet connection. If I'm living with others, I'll try to get them to chip in for something bigger and better, if not then it's enough to cover my own personal use anyway.