Will/should Internet access move from price/bandwidth to price/bits?

[mrzed]

I was just reading the cable modem hacking thread, and the morpheus/university thread and got to thinking. It seems there is no technical reason why broadband providers cannot monitor downloads and charge a price/Mb downloaded. The price could be set according to demand, so that it would be much more expensive during peak hours.

I come from a geography/urban planning background. The technical hurdles to do this with real roads are enormous, but the benefits are obvious: users pay for the demands they place on the system, capacity is maximized, and the few who use up most of the resources pay accordingly. All of these benefits would apply to broadband. The only (and admittedly huge) hurdle I can think of is in promotion and marketing. For consumers to understand competing price structures might become quite difficult. $45.95/Month is a lot easier to compare.

I should note that I benefit a great deal from the current system. Living in Canada, I have the cheapest possible broadband, and in my neighborhood, there are few subscribers. I get great speed at all hours for cheap. But I cannot help but think the current system makes little sense.

 

[netsysadmin]

why in the hell would you want to move to a pricing scale that was based on your bandwidth usage...thats like making the all you can eat buffet into a $10.00 a pound ripoff...thats the whole point of having high speed access...one flat price with unlimited usage...if the companies converted to the $$ per bandwidth we would all get raped!!!...BAD IDEA!

 

[mrzed]

Right now we do pay for bandwidth. You pay a flat rate for unlimited access with a specified connection speed. The actual speed may vary, but it is the potential we pay for.

As I said, I benefit from the current system, but there is no doubt that the majority of users do not. Right now, the people getting raped are the millions of subscribers who pay for the fat pipes, and have them all clogged up by file sharing.

But now thank I think further, the reason the companies are not jumping on this is the plans for streaming media. If people knew they were paying per bit, they might be less likely to stream content from the same companies that provide the bandwidth.

 

[PeeluckyDuckee]

First thing that comes to mind if we move to your pricing scheme is that we'd be like we were back in the old $0.75/$1.00 per hour dialup service. The companies will always charge the highest amount that consumers are willing to pay/tolerate. If they've got a good customer base and a good profit margin, unless moving to your pricing scheme will mean fatter profits and less strain on their existing hardware/network, I don't see that happening.

Charging $/bit rate used is a bad idea, imo. Charging for max potential bandwidth at various step levels would be the better way to go I beleive. MTS already offers a lower rate $25 a month DSL package for casual surfers that don't need the fat pipe, yet still get unlimited access. The regular users get charged the regular $40.

Just my thoughts.
Plucky