Comcast/etc....

[Jeremy Fowler, CNA]

Problem with that is they have to support that meter speed and be able to
deliver it at all times. I know my cable connection speeds differ greatly with
the amount of people using it. If you live in a highly populated area that
supports many cable users and you get on at popular time, your bandwidth is
going to suck. If I paid for my for a certain amount of bandwidth, I better damn
get it no matter the time or who's using it. With the current cable technology,
you can meter that, and you can't guarantee speeds. So you can't have metered
bandwidth. It's one price, and you get what you get when you get it. -Jeremy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-kclug at marauder.illiana.net
> [mailto:owner-kclug at marauder.illiana.net]On Behalf Of Bradley Miller
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 11:38 AM
> To: kclug at kclug.org
> Subject: Comcast/etc....
>
>
> >Imagine cable companies offering digital cable channels and faster
> broadband at competitive prices. ;-)
>
>
> Herein lies the rub for all these types of things.  Bandwidth costs money.
>  Right now I have 10+ PC's all on my DSL for my home office.  I pay a
> higher premium for my DSL service (but not as expensive as SWBell would
> charge) to have my service.   At most, my wife might be surfing while I am
> working and perhaps down the road my son will be online also.  Big deal.
> Are the cable companies really that worried about that type of traffic . .
> . probably not in all honesty.   It's when we all start to decided to snag
> the latest MP3's, movie trailers or whatever from the net that things get a
> little hairy for bandwidth.
>
> How would you deal with it from a business perspective?   Each month you
> get ?? cable channels or dish channels and you probably don't watch more
> than one at a time . . . yet you pay for the option of doing that.
> Unfortunately bandwidth isn't fixed quite like that . . . but what if it
> was?   What if they metered your speed.  You want more speed, you pay more.
>   Do you think $40/month is reasonable for the typical bandwidth a home
> could suck down?   Now picture something as simple as a subdivision in
> terms of bandwidth.  Look at any typical MRTG graph and you'll see exactly
> why companies have to look at what they're doing.  Do you put in enough
> bandwidth everywhere to handle that crush?   How many ISP's have made money
> by having a 1:1 dial up ratio?
>
> Personally, I think they should have metered bandwidth with pricepoints for
> different levels of data connections.  I'm not saying have a
> "20gig/$50/month" limit, more like a window for download speeds.  If you
> have one PC, do you need more than 400K/sec?   A tiered pricing structure
> would give people the best of both worlds.
>
> What about metered pricing though?  Every other commodity is priced that
> way.  We buy a gallon of gas, get water based on so many thousand gallons
> and electriciy is by the kilowatt/hour.   Why not bandwidth?   Would your
> download habits change?  If the price was right I could see a minimum
> connect charge (say $15/month) and then a $??/gig transfer fee.  Will
> people yell?  Yes -- they are to used to the "give me all I can get"
> mentality.  The Internet "metality" is free, but somewhere along the line
> someone forgot to mention that the infrastructure has to be paid for
> somehow.   We'd all love a 6 lane highway from KC to St. Louis, but once we
> realize who's paying for it . . .
>
> The new 3G wireless phones are on the brink of coming out -- but how do you
> price them?  Do you think they're honestly going to let someone tie a cell
> and bandwidth to be "Mr. MP3 Jukebox" for 1/2 the country?
>
> -- Bradley Miller
>
>