Verizon CTO sees eventual move to metered broadband

[Mark Holtz]

From Telephony Online:

Verizon CTO sees eventual move to metered broadbandCaution: Pricing paradigm shift ahead.

Verizon Communications Chief Technology Officer Richard Lynch told a 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo press conference today that the broadband industry “will see a pricing paradigm shift” because Internet service providers “cannot continue to grow the Internet without passing the cost on to someone.” His comments are believed to mark the first time a Verizon executive had publicly supported metered billing at some point in the future.FULL ARTICLE HERE (http://telephonyonline.com/residential_services/news/verizon-cto-metering-092909/)

Translation: How can we make as much money as possible while spending as little as possible on infrastructure? After all, the Internet is really just good for e-mail and basic web browsing? Damn those downloaders and Warcrafters.

[Stuart Sweet]

The industry has become too accustomed to buying dark fiber cheaply and selling service expensively. That, combined with the lack of competition as the market slims down to cable vs. telco in most markets will inevitably allow this to happen.

[djlong]

Translation: We stink. We'll end up having to charge you more and give you less because we can't remember what we did the previous month. Somehow we were able to get you from dial-up to DSL to fiber for ever decreasing prices. A 1.5M connection used to cost over a thousand dollars a month and now you can get one for $30. But we're dumb and have our heads up our posteriors so enjoy "the good 'ol days" while they last.

People like that make me sick.

[hdtvfan0001]

Translation = we have a limited capacity on bandwidth, and we see the light at the end of that tunnel....so we're sending out balloons to warn folks we're gonna raise prices and limit individual households.

Even as great as the fiber-based providers make things sound...they too have limits.

Not surprised.

[HDJulie]

So, for those of you on a decent Internet connection, if you were suddenly going to have to pay for anything above 50 Gig a month, would that change what you do online or would it be business as usual. And would we be talking 50 Gig free or would they make it 25 Gig or even 10.

[Reaper]

What's wrong with metered usage? Why shouldn't those who download/upload more data pay more?

[Stuart Sweet]

I don't know that there's anything wrong, except that it's not what people are used to. From the point of view of DIRECTV users, this impacts their On Demand usage, as all of that is done over the internet.

[Reaper]

I don't know that there's anything wrong, except that it's not what people are used to. From the point of view of DIRECTV users, this impacts their On Demand usage, as all of that is done over the internet.

Although I have FiOS TV, I also have a Roku streaming Netflix player so it would affect me too. But I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with paying for your actual usage.

[SayWhat?]

Funny, but it seems the FCC is moving in the opposite direction if I remember the article I posted here a week or so ago.

Metered per Mb, not gonna work. Pay extra over a certain threshold -- maybe if the threshold level and overage amounts are reasonable.

[SayWhat?]

Side thought.

What about websites where the biggest BW hogs are the ads? The actual page data and graphics are not bad, but they have 20 or 30 high graphic ads that flash and blink. How will that work? What about sites that are more text oriented like this one vs. sites that are Flash based?

Will web designers be taken to task for wasting BW of their visitors?

[rudeney]

I don't download a lot, but when I do, I need the ability for a good reason - not entertainment or "file sharing", but for work. I often need to transfer data and download business software from vendors. Most months, I doubt I even get anywhere near 5GB, but some months, I am sure I'd go over 50GB. What I'd rather see is some provision that allows large downloads to be queued at a lower (i.e. slower) priority. For example, if my brother sends me 2MB of photo of his kids at the beach, let me get that full-speed, but if I want to download the 4GB Windows Server 2008 SP2 DVD image from Microsoft, I don't care if that takes all night.

[Herdfan]

So, for those of you on a decent Internet connection, if you were suddenly going to have to pay for anything above 50 Gig a month, would that change what you do online or would it be business as usual.

Wouldn't change it a bit. I doubt I hit 10gig a month.

I can see a scenario where all the speeds are the same, but you pay for throughput. This is not really any different from what we do for other utilities such as electric, gas and water.

Its the parents of the kids illegally downloading 10 movies a day that are going to freak when they get their first bill.

[wilbur_the_goose]

This is AOL, circa 1995.

[hdtvfan0001]

This is AOL, circa 1995.
:lol::lol::lol:

What makes it funny is that what you are saying is pretty much true. :D

[sriram]

If the charged everyone based on what they were using, I bet they will be making less money because grandma's using their internet connection once a week will greatly outnumber those who torrent 24x7. So their goal will be to keep grandma overpaying, but cut off / charge the torrenters more, which probably means something like a 50 gb allotment (whether you need it or not) and overage charges. Win, win for them.

IMHO, "metering" may not be the best answer as bandwidth doesn't have the same qualities as physical resources. Once a link is established, it costs the same whether it is used 1% or 100%. Maybe other solutions, like offer two levels of service; one high priority (for web browsing / voip / etc), and one low priority (for downloading / torrents / etc). The key here, of course, is the customer would decide what is high and low priority for them instead of the ISP.

[hdtvfan0001]

My guess is you'll see some form of pricing "tiers" based on usage some day.

That allows for the small, medium, and large users to pay based on actual individual usage, but not overpay either.

[djlong]

Reaper: SHouldn't you pay by the minute for your cell phone or TV service? After all, if you use it more, shouldn't you pay more? How about your landline?

Fact is, there are lower and higher-priced tiers out there. There's one tier below me for a slower speed fiber connection (my fiancee has that at her place) and the tiers above me are designed for businesses (they have higher upload speeds).

I pay a flat rate every month. Some months I use more, some months (like when I went on vacation for 2 weeks) I use less. I can go through 4GB/hr in some cases.

Don't sell me something as "unlimited" and then say "Ooops - we didn't mean it!"

[netconcepts]

We already pay different rates for different bandwidth. up to and over $100 for DSL at 1MB/Sec upload.

Seems to me that this is a an overcharge for service now. To add metered rates above that will just kill off most of their business. But maybe that is what they want to keep from having to upgrade over time.