RE: An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial

[Mark Foster <blakjak () blakjak net>]

On Fri, 18 Jan 2008, Rod Beck wrote:

> According to the article these types of plan are well established like Australia. And that makes sense. The cost of 
> private line connectivity into Australia is very high, although it has probably fallen due to Southern Cross raising 
> their capacity.
>
> Whenever this packet-switched network gets stressed, these types of pricing schemes are probably only solution outside of 
> rationing 'the bandwidth hogs'.

Drop in rates? You're optimistic!

I'm glad someone pointed out that the sort of arrangement being proposed 
isn't all that unusual outside of the US.

In New Zealand, I pay for a fixed amount (which I can specify) and upon 
exceeding that amount I get rate-limited to 64k/s.
I can elect to pay for additional bandwidth (takes effect very quickly) 
and 'top up' my monthly allowance if I wish.

http://www.xnet.co.nz/hsi/

Truth is that there's plenty of Internet Users out there who will save 
money[1] by not subsidising the usage of others... your mom-and-pop types 
who use broadband for its convenience, not its high monthly usage ceiling.

Mark.

[1] This does assume, as already pointed out, that the charging rate for 
this service is fairly balanced against the baseline set by the true 'flat 
rate' plans... which should be an option - but you should also be paying a 
reasonable rate for the priviledge.