Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Is pay-as-you-go the devil?

Re: Is pay-as-you-go the devil?

naiserie — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:24:01 -0000

I guess that'd be one way of solving the p2p problem...

Also, regarding the "ISPs' concerns about who is paying for their networks"...I'm fairly certain the ISPs owe tax payers around $200 billion worth of undelivered networks. I'll happily pay for my 100+ gigabyte usage/month from my share of that pot.

Re: Is pay-as-you-go the devil?

Tim — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:20:41 -0000

I'm not comfortable with lumping together "monopoly or duopoly." Obviously neither is as good as a market with a lot of alternatives, but generally speaking a duopoly is more like a competitive market than a monopoly.

Re: Is pay-as-you-go the devil?

MikeT — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:13:48 -0000

Sorry, I did need to "RTFA." The last proposals I saw were to charge Google, Amazon, etc. Mike Masnick is correct, though, that competition isn't the norm in many parts of America. In rural Virginia, you're lucky if you have one or two providers. Three is practically metropolitan.

Re: Is pay-as-you-go the devil?

mmasnick — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:04:19 -0000

Jerry,

You're right that American consumers hate the uncertainty. To them, that's a cost -- and it's a cost that makes them hesitant to figure out how useful the connectivity really is.

The $50/MB may be an exaggeration, but the point still stands, that they could use this as a way of breaking network neutrality from a different direction (and to MikeT above, this article is about charging consumers, not about charging Google).

Finally, your anecdotal point about how you happen to have choice is a good sign -- but the majority of Americans don't yet have that much choice in broadband access. I am hoping we get there, but for most people there is only one or two choices -- and there's monopoly pricing to prove it.

I am very hopeful that wireless technologies will eventually help break the logjam, but it won't happen for a while. The technology just isn't that good and the spectrum just isn't that available.

So, yes, for the time being, for many of us, we face a monopoly or a duopoly -- and it's a big problem.

Re: Is pay-as-you-go the devil?

MikeT — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:42:33 -0000

Jerry,

They're talking about charging Google, not their users. Google, pay $0.001/mb or we'll cut your bandwidth on our network down. You're also assuming something which has no signs of materializing. What makes you think that in a market with only 2-3 broadband providers in any given area that they'll not all play by the same rules? If there are no real choices in that one area, that all 3 benefit from, then customers cannot get what they want. Maybe one of them would do it as a differentiator, but I doubt it. They're just too short-sighted.

As I said on my blog, this is about preventing fraud, not property rights. Google's not screwing anyone. They pay for their bandwidth and I pay for mine. Who the hell is the telecom to get between us when ultimately one of us pays them? I pay them to access Google, thus what is their complaint? Google pays their telecom for the ability to provide a service. If they don't like the fees, then change them.