I wonder how long before ISP's will switch to a per use billing scheme like power.

[EliteRetard]

Sure everybody wants unlimited everything for nothing, but the cable companies do need to make some money. In the spirit of fairness, if they were going to charge "per GB" I think I would support something like this:

$25/month for 0-50GB
$40/month for 50-100GB
$55/month for 100-200GB
$70/month for 200-400GB
$85/month for 400-800GB
$100/month for 800-1600GB

With no download speed caps (except line sharing when fully loaded) and an upload speed limit (25Mbps? But no upload data limit?) to deter businesses from using "consumer" lines.

If you need more data than that you can get a "professional" line...but get guaranteed speeds (no worry about slowdown at peak hours) and much better (guaranteed) upload speeds. Maybe start at $200/month for up to 3TB download a month? Then tier those too for more money.

 

[shortylickens]

Just like cell service, theres competition. So the one group who offers unlimited for a set price will probably get a lot more business.

Utilities like power and water dont have competition, so they can milk every last penny from you.

 

[Aikouka]

Sure everybody wants unlimited everything for nothing, but the cable companies do need to make some money. In the spirit of fairness, if they were going to charge "per GB" I think I would support something like this:

$25/month for 0-50GB
$40/month for 50-100GB
$55/month for 100-200GB
$70/month for 200-400GB
$85/month for 400-800GB
$100/month for 800-1600GB

Some of your prices -- especially at the low end -- are really expensive. The jump from the second tier only gets you 50GB at the cost of $15. That's more than Comcast charges me now for 50GB, and I've called their prices outrageous. Bandwidth costs are pennies on the dollar with the prices that you're suggesting, and with infrastructure largely handled, ISPs can make money hand over foot. It's been guesstimated that TWC has a 97% profit margin on their Internet services. The counter-argument to that is that there's the infrastructure that has to go into it, but we've paid for a good bit of that through grants, tax breaks, etc.

Here's the way I see it. Most businesses only care about one thing: making money, and arguably, that's their job. They don't care what they do to their employees or their customers so long as the retention rate is high enough to justify any measure. For example, Comcast can charge me (what I consider to be) outrageous fees, and there's nothing I can do about it. The purpose of them testing the fees is to see what they can get away with, and they're going to learn the hard way when we refuse to put up with it. My city is already planning on going to a municipal-like broadband setup, and you can be sure that Comcast isn't going to like it.

 

[EliteRetard]

I dunno, I've never seen any internet under $60/month...regardless of how little you use. Sure per GB is higher at the lower tiers, but for people who use little they would be paying less than now.

 

[jlee]

I dunno, I've never seen any internet under $60/month...regardless of how little you use. Sure per GB is higher at the lower tiers, but for people who use little they would be paying less than now.

Mine is $59.99/mo at 100mbps down. I could go cheaper, but for the few extra bucks I'll take the extra speed.

 

[Red Squirrel]

One thing that needs to change is the way tier1 providers charge ISPs. Bandwidth usage should not cost anything per month, only total capacity. The pipe should be a flat cost. Think of the internet as a giant LAN. Say you upgrade from 10/100 switches to gig switches. Yeah that's expensive, but once it's paid for, it does not really cost more to run and whether they are at 0% capacity or 100% capacity. Charge the ISPs a flat rate based on how big their pipe is not how much they use. So as a tier1 provider say you have 100gb capacity on your backbone, you carve it out to give a chunck to each ISP in such a way that one ISP cannot take down the whole connection. Once you've actually sold all of the 100 you are making quite a lot per month and can now afford to upgrade and add another 100gb router, possibly run more physical fibre at various end points etc.

In the end, ISPs should then be able to pass the savings to the customer (lol) at least in a perfect setting.

 

[EliteRetard]

Perhaps a slight tweak like so:

0-60
60-120
120-240
240-480
480-960
960-1920

 

[EliteRetard]

Mine is $59.99/mo at 100mbps down. I could go cheaper, but for the few extra bucks I'll take the extra speed.

That's a speed rating, if you could get 200-240GB of data at "unlimited speed" for $55 a month would you take it?

Edit: And the cap is at 1.6-2TB or whatever, if you went over the $55/month "limit" you would get bumped to the next tier for $70/month (or whatever).

 

[EliteRetard]

Honestly I'm not sure which way I would vote, limited speeds and unlimited data or a good tiered data cap plan for much better speeds. I'm just throwing the idea out there, instead of a flat rate 1$ per GB (or .05$ etc).

 

[Fenixgoon]

1TB, min speed 100mbps, $50. that's my starting offer for cap-rated internet.

 

[jlee]

That's a speed rating, if you could get 200-240GB of data at "unlimited speed" for $55 a month would you take it?

Edit: And the cap is at 1.6-2TB or whatever, if you went over the $55/month "limit" you would get bumped to the next tier for $70/month (or whatever).

"Unlimited speed", as in gigabit? I'm not capped right now. Cox says they have a 'limit' but nothing happens if you exceed it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If they really want to cap, instead of overcharging, it should just throttle. I would much rather end up with slower internet than a ridiculously huge bill. The caps should also be more reasonable, like start at 500GB for low end packages and 1-2TB for regular packages and 5-10TB for "extreme" packages. This 200GB business is from the days of 5mb cable and has not changed since.

I'm just glad my ISP does not have any caps. I did almost 2TB in a week once lol.

 

[ImpulsE69]

It should be charged by the 1's. Not the 0's.

 

[EliteRetard]

I could get behind this too

0-125 GB 25$
125-250 GB 40$
250-500 GB 55$
500-1,000 GB 70$
1,000-2,000 GB 85$
2,000-4,000 GB 100$

"unlimited speed"

But I just don't see any cable company offering a 4TB consumer tier (especially not for $100/month) lol

 

[EliteRetard]

Is there an easy way to track data usage? I'm pretty sure I use a few hundred GB myself (probably did that much in games this month) every month, but I've never tracked anything and may not actually realize where I'm at.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Pfsense has nice graphs.



This is probably my record.

 

[EliteRetard]

I have no idea what that is...or how to even begin interpreting it.
Ignorance is bliss...

 

[SparkyJJO]

Sure everybody wants unlimited everything for nothing, but the cable companies do need to make some money. In the spirit of fairness, if they were going to charge "per GB" I think I would support something like this:

$25/month for 0-50GB
$40/month for 50-100GB
$55/month for 100-200GB
$70/month for 200-400GB
$85/month for 400-800GB
$100/month for 800-1600GB

With no download speed caps (except line sharing when fully loaded) and an upload speed limit (25Mbps? But no upload data limit?) to deter businesses from using "consumer" lines.

If you need more data than that you can get a "professional" line...but get guaranteed speeds (no worry about slowdown at peak hours) and much better (guaranteed) upload speeds. Maybe start at $200/month for up to 3TB download a month? Then tier those too for more money.

I dunno, I've never seen any internet under $60/month...regardless of how little you use. Sure per GB is higher at the lower tiers, but for people who use little they would be paying less than now.

Your tiering sucks. Do you work for an ISP or something?

I could get (if I wanted) Time Warner "lite" which is around $25 or $30 a month I think, for a 3 Mbit down connection IIRC. I'm currently paying $55 a month for 30/5. So yes, below $60 does most certainly exist.

According to DD-WRT, I use a little under 100GB a month. However, my old boss's router says he used about 120GB but Time Warner said he used a little over 2x that. If they DO indeed to metered billing the ISPs had better learn how to meter it properly!

 

[EliteRetard]

Hey, I've since updated my tiered plan. You now get more than double the data for the same price!

I've honestly never seen a good budget internet (I think I did get some free 56k back in the day). And even with my original proposal you guys would still be paying $55 or less each month and get way more than 3Mbps.

 

[jlee]

I just checked mine - my ISP's meter says we've used 142GB since February 1st. They say I have a 300GB plan, but I have a buddy who routinely tries to see how much bandwidth he can generate and they haven't shut him off yet.

 

[Aikouka]

Honestly, if they want to charge for bandwidth tiers, they should really tackle it more like the cellular companies. No, Comcast, put down the plans for building your very own Money Vault... I'm not talking about charging ridiculous rates!! Verizon charges me for a device and then has a separate breakdown for the data allotment. In other words, Comcast says, "We're going to charge a flat $20 fee for Internet service, which supports our call centers, service centers, etc., and then you choose an Internet data tier."

Because that's the thing... bandwidth is cheap as shit, but they still have to pay for service, which is somewhat hard to judge as it's lumped in with Cable TV. That's most likely the reason why you pay more for Internet without a TV subscription. Ah... who am I kidding... they do that because they want more money.

I have no idea what that is...or how to even begin interpreting it.
Ignorance is bliss...

pfsense is a firewall program. People normally use it when they create their own routers/firewalls.

Most consumer routers can keep track of bandwidth usage.

 

[EliteRetard]

I see...

I don't have a consumer router.

 

[tential]

$1 per gig ?!?!?! Are you all insane. Between Steam game downloads, Netflix streaming and HD Youtube, that rate would increase our monthly internet bill by about 5x.

$1 per gig is a huge ripoff, more like .05c a gig.

$60 - Game
$30 - Season Pass
$50 - ($1/gig 50 gig game $50)
$5 - (Season Pass Downloads if you're lucky)

This doesn't even begin to factor in the streaming you mentioned or factor in game downloads that break.
Imagine if you purchased AC Unity under this payment method? You would have paid over $100 just to download the game before you paid for the actual game, season pass, etc.

 

[ImpulsE69]

$60 - Game
$30 - Season Pass
$50 - ($1/gig 50 gig game $50)
$5 - (Season Pass Downloads if you're lucky)

This doesn't even begin to factor in the streaming you mentioned or factor in game downloads that break.
Imagine if you purchased AC Unity under this payment method? You would have paid over $100 just to download the game before you paid for the actual game, season pass, etc.

Or the habit of large patches/fixes or including Japanese audio that isn't necessary in the download bloating it up.

Seriously, there are so many reasons that charging per GB is a very bad idea it's not even funny. It would be a HUGE step backward.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Sure everybody wants unlimited everything for nothing, but the cable companies do need to make some money. In the spirit of fairness, if they were going to charge "per GB" I think I would support something like this:

$25/month for 0-50GB
$40/month for 50-100GB
$55/month for 100-200GB
$70/month for 200-400GB
$85/month for 400-800GB
$100/month for 800-1600GB

With no download speed caps (except line sharing when fully loaded) and an upload speed limit (25Mbps? But no upload data limit?) to deter businesses from using "consumer" lines.

If you need more data than that you can get a "professional" line...but get guaranteed speeds (no worry about slowdown at peak hours) and much better (guaranteed) upload speeds. Maybe start at $200/month for up to 3TB download a month? Then tier those too for more money.

I'm already being charged this by Comcast.