RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"

[JC Dill <nanog () vo cnchost com>]

On 01:40 PM 1/31/2002 -0500, Greg Pendergrass wrote:
>
>It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use 100% of
>what they pay for. So if 1% of your customers use %50+ of your bandwidth,
>your 1% is getting their money's worth. If you don't want the customer to
>use it, don't sell it to them.

The problem is that ISPs are not configuring products that meet customer needs.

What the average broadband customer WANTS is:

o       The highest transmission rate possible, both for uploading and
                downloading
o       A reasonable "consumption" of the above bandwidth per month,
                perhaps 1 GB aggregate (both directions)
o       For a reasonable "home user" monthly rate
o       With the ability to buy additional consumption at a moderate increase
                if their needs are higher than the typical "home user"
o       The ability to use NAT to have more than one home machine on
                the connection, so that they can share the connection
                among all the residents of their home

But the home user broadband accounts ISPs sell are:

o       Accounts with tiered bandwidth pricing
o       No consumption cap so they limit speed instead (meeting
                the ISPs needs, but not the customer's needs)
o       Unreasonable NAT policies
o       Expensive upgrade paths

Until ISPs start making broadband services which match end users needs 
these problems will continue.  You can't address this with TOS policies, 
you have to have products that MEET your customer's needs!

Web hosting providers have figured out how to make products that meet their 
customers needs by metering and charging for excessive bandwidth 
consumption, (or shutting off the site's access if it consumed the limit 
for the day, or the month) without throttling the site's "speed".  This 
isn't rocket science, you just need to apply the same pricing schemes and 
bandwidth management systems to broadband.  Instead of cutting the 
broadband customer off when they have used their bandwidth consumption, 
rate limit the connection to 14.4 so that they can still access their email 
and see your message telling them that they've over-consumed their 
bandwidth and exhausted their allotment.  They can either accept the rate 
limited circuit until the beginning of the next cycle, or they can opt to 
pay extra to have a higher bandwidth consumption allotment.

The only reason that broadband providers don't do this already is that 
there are artificial barriers to true competition.  When those barriers are 
removed and any given broadband customer can select from dozens or hundreds 
of options (as is the case with website hosting), these options WILL be 
available and customers will opt for services that have them.

jc