Re: MFS WorldCom/WilTel/LDDS

[Hong Chen <hchen () aimnet net>]

I think that metered pricing will come sometime, if not 
in the near future. Some charges for time online for 
dialup customers, some charges on the number of bytes 
transfered, and some charges distance/time/bandwidth used 
(such as Internet Fax). 

There are various technologies and applications being
introduced which allow a dial up user to nail up a 
port for many many hours (such as PointCast, and many
new business plans I have seen). A lot of times, the users
are misusing the dial up port as dedicated port unknowingly. 

Of course, one can always configure authentication servers 
to prevent some of the misuses (such as constant pinging a host).
However, with the new applications coming out everyday, 
it is quite difficult to do for ISPs. Just wondering how the ISPs
can continue to offer $15 unlimited services, both financially 
and technically.

I have even seen one of our partners at GRIC (An international 
roaming consortium) saying that they are looking for ways to 
stop people from running Internet phone app over their 
expensive $1M per year T1 over the Pacific. 

It seems to me that there is no need to jump ship if your 
ISP changed into metered services. It at least shows
your provider knows what they are doing.
Someday everyone has to.

Hong
www.aimnet.com/www.aimsoft.com/www.gric.com
Gee, I own so many domain names ....

Matt Ranney wrote:
> Tim Salo writes...
> >
> [...]
> > The easiest point to measure traffic is undoubtedly on the link between
> > the customer and its ISP.  I believe that many ISPs are already
> > measuring the total amount of traffic into and out of each customer.
> > I even saw a complicated pricing formula from one ISP which added a
> > surcharge cor customers which passed a lot of traffic over the last time
> > period (some number of months, I seem to recall). So, at least at one point,
> > we already have at least one example of an ISP which had a component
> > of its pricing based on the amount of traffic transferred over a
> > dedicated connection.
>
> Metered pricing is already a reality with at least a couple of
> providers that I know of.  Interestingly enough, I switched primary
> providers a few months ago because my provider at the time was
> switching from a flat rate scheme to a metered one.  The end result
> was that at my current usage level, my monthly rate would more than
> double.
>
> I'm not exactly sure what conclusions you can draw from this, so I'll
> just stop now.
> --
> Matt Ranney - mjr () eit com
>
> This is how I sign all my messages.
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