LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksYeah me too - pretty much the point I was trying to make earlier.
Yeah me too - pretty much the point I was trying to make earlier.
But more and more people are on a metered plan, it rewards them for using less.Originally Posted by Arthran
Some people will want a price fixed.
some people will want a floating?
Let them have both! The only reason I think some people are getting arsey about this is because they know they use more than their fair share, and they don't want to pay more for it...... Nice!
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Phage (06-10-2009)
I agree with you about having both - completely! If you want a metered plan, get one but if not stick with a fixed rate. On the other hand I don't agree with your last statement - what exactly does 'fair share' mean? Some of us need to download a lot for what we do - it's not exactly unfair of us to do so is it? You wouldn't complain about a nearby garage or something using 'more than their fair share' of water if they washed cars would you?? And yeah this idea annoys me but I probably still download less than what a lot of xGB/month packages offer! And as I've said countless times before - I just don't like the idea of paying by the MB, even if it saved me money!
No, but say there was a car park, and my space was often empty, you start to use it, yet when i decide i actually want to use it there is no capacity.
That is a much fairer example.
If the whole of London gave up on having showers, and moved to baths, we'd have no drinking water....
The idea that you just don't want to pay per MB, even if it saves you money is mind boggling. As I said above, you are welcome to take the fixed, in exchange for the floating, but that involves paying a premium.
So, you pay that premium, and don't bitch about telco's wanting to offer more competative (read, cheaper for consumer whilst making them more money) packages.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I wouldn't say the car park one is a good analogy TBH - if I were to start downloading a huge file you'd still be able to download, just maybe a bit slower - and that's my point - ISPs should stop being greedy and trying to get the best headline speeds, instead they should try to actually provide everyone with the advertised speeds. Once they master that, then start offering higher speeds. The water one is a better analogy but also proves a point on my behalf - everyone isn't going to suddenly start downloading huge files all the time are they? The network it working well enough now, there's nothing badly wrong with it so it's unfair for the ISP to make more money out of us, not to help us, but to make them more money to improve equipment which would let them take on more customers and make yet more money and so the cycle continues - you'd be naive to think they were doing something to help the consumer! Again, I agree about you on the idea of having both options - just like with water. It's hard to explain what I mean about wanting a fixed price but I'll have another shot - if you're on PAYG mobile and you phone someone, you try to hurry the call to save yourself money wheras with a contract you wouldn't bother and instead take your time since you generally have more minutes than you'd ever use - the contract gives you the comfort of taking your time/not having to think about how much you're spending.
The only problem with that is that people like you would then moan even more about britain falling behind the rest of the world in headline speeds.
A fixed price is all well and good but since it costs ISP's per megabyte (or any other unit of data if you want to get pedantic) as well as per month to provide the service, they are subsidising the heavy users with the money from the light users.Once they master that, then start offering higher speeds. The water one is a better analogy but also proves a point on my behalf - everyone isn't going to suddenly start downloading huge files all the time are they? The network it working well enough now, there's nothing badly wrong with it so it's unfair for the ISP to make more money out of us, not to help us, but to make them more money to improve equipment which would let them take on more customers and make yet more money and so the cycle continues - you'd be naive to think they were doing something to help the consumer! Again, I agree about you on the idea of having both options - just like with water. It's hard to explain what I mean about wanting a fixed price but I'll have another shot - if you're on PAYG mobile and you phone someone, you try to hurry the call to save yourself money wheras with a contract you wouldn't bother and instead take your time since you generally have more minutes than you'd ever use - the contract gives you the comfort of taking your time/not having to think about how much you're spending.
Heavy users shouldn't be subsidised full stop. If they want unmetered and unlimited, there is already an option. It's just that it costs over £200 per month.
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
People like me eh? No need to turn things personal this is just an everyday forum debate! And actually, no I wouldn't moan about it - if we were all getting what's advertised I'd be pleased. Besides, we get lower headline speeds than a fair few countries but have I said one word about it? And unmetered/unlimited you can get for far less than £200 - just look at Be and Virgin. Yeah Virgin has speed caps but I'm prepared to accept that for unlimited downloads. It's also unfair to say light users pay for heavy users' bandwidth - light users buy cheap packages, heavy users pay more, much more, for better packages to your argument has no substance. I don't wish to debate the matter any further though if that's the attitude you're going to have.
Both the water and the road analogies are good - for illustrating different points.
Starting off with the premise that bandwidth is a finite resource, it doesn't seem to unreasonable that it should be paid for by use. And in effect there is no such thing as unlimited broadband - in any one billing period, the limit is set by either the speed of the connection, or an arbitrary limit.
So to go back to wtaer... if you are on a metered water supply, you pay by the volume downloaded. You don't by a specific pressure of water supply, so if you live at the end of the pipe, your 20 gallon bath will cost exactly the same as the 20 gallon bath of someone at the start of the pipe - but your bath may take twice as long to fill if the pressure is reduced. And if a lot of people are running a bath at the same time, the pressure will be lower, and all baths will take longer to fill. But you will all pay the same. (Unless you decide to have a shower instead because you were fed up with aiting, or you choose to delay your bath to when water demand is lower)
The long term answer is to increase the water pressure, but that requires additional investment, and the occasions when everyone wants to take a bath at the same time may not happen very often.
Now advertised rates. You buy a car that is advertised as being capable of doing up to 70 MPH. The salesman doesn't ask you where you are driving it - and if you gpo on a motorway, you may drive it at 70 MPH. But the roads where you live are single track, twisty, full of pot holes.
Your car is still capable of doing 70 - but not on those roads. In the same way, the ISP doesn't know the precise condition of your line (or the demand at any given time) so advertising a variable quality service as up to doesn't seem unreasonable. The alternative would be to say that the service will achieve a minimum speeds of 512b/s - but that would be like a car salesman saying that the car will do at least 10 MPH.
No9w I do like flat rate charging - but actually, paying for broadband by useage does seem a fairer way, and one that was used by the mobile networks.
The better solution seems to be that where you prebuy a certain amount of bandwidth (in the case of my mobile connection, 3GB) but if I go over that I pay for the extra by the megabyte. Zen have a similar charging regime on some of their packages.
It isn't new, and I suspect will be a model that will become more common as time passes.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
Been helped or just 'Like' a post? Use the Thanks button!
My broadband speed - 750 Meganibbles/minute
I wasn't getting personal, maybe I could have phrased that better. I mean heavy users.
Would you not be moaning if the fastest broadband available in the UK today was 2Mbit?
I believe Be/O2 have now intoduced a fair use policy as well
Their model worked well when their network was under subscribed as even with users taking the mick they had the capacity but now they are covering more of the country they don't want to upgrade tehir core infrastructure to provide for 5% of people downloading hundreds of gigabytes per month but paying the same as everybody else.
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
OK fair enough. And yeah I know about fair use policies and they are fair enough - most users, even most heavy ones, won't go over them so they're not really a problem. I'm not a terribly heavy downloader myself really and most of what I do download is things like Linux isos/stuff on XBL/Steam. I'm probably download far less than most people who call themselves light downloaders but I do sometimes download a fair bit in a short space of time as I'm sure we all do. I think a lot of illegal file sharing (I don't download anything illegal myself - I don't even use any torrents at all, even for legal stuff) eats up bandwidth and that should be dealt with before punishing legit users with more charges.
Metered access would be one way of discouraging those illegal downloads that are eating up bandwidth. At least the illegal downloaders would be paying something for their downloads .... just not to the person/company whose IP they're ripping off.
ISP's must have a notional "average" figure in mind when they determine network capacity and how many people a given infrastructure can service. Maybe a nominal flat-rate charge including that amount of daily bandwidth, with then a charge per MB for going over it.
Whatever else can be said, making people pay for something is a wonderful way of focussing their attention on how much they use, be it water, or bandwidth.
What worries me is that a bandwidth metered charge would probably be followed by a 'bandwidth maintenance tax', a bit like road fund licence, or fuel duty. Governments are fully aware of the notion of elasticity of demand and that inelastic items are great items to tax because the tax has less impact on demand for inelastic items. How long will it be before one cash-strapped government or another works out that bandwidth might be the 21st Century's petrol - i.e, the Golden Goose. They're already talking about a tax on fixed phone lines to pay for network infrastructure, and a duty rate levied on bandwidth isn't that much of a reach.
And on that cheery note .... goodnight.
more than VAT?
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
But I don't think that justifies genuine users having to pay more - ie we shouldn't have to pay more because of people who abuse the network? The Internet was always intended to be a free-to-use network, which to a point it is - you pay the ISP for a connection but that all changes if you get charged my the MB where they are charging you for accessing the network. As I've said before, the Internet wouldn't be what it is today if people were charged by the MB, especially bandwidth-intensive things like iPlayer, Youtube, Steam, gaming in general, and even things like Linux...
Who says genuine users *will* have to pay more?.. They may pay a lot less. We aren't discussing rates, it could be 5p a gigabyte. What we're discussing is the principle of usage-based billing.
Agreed, but they're already doing that, aren't they?.. The 50p 2mbps-broadband-for-everyone levy.
So am I, I mean why should genuine users be messed about because of illegal file sharers etc?
There are currently 2 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 2 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote