Windows

What Do You Think About Tiered Broadband?

Posted by on Jun 9, 2008 | 20 Comments

I’m interested in some opinions here.

There’s a lot of discussion these days about tiered broadband (TB). For those who don’t know, in a nutshell TB involves charging people according to the bandwidth they use, either by selling “high usage” plans or by charging for bandwidth (number of Gigabytes sent) over a certain limit contained in a basic plan.

Some folks claim that unlimited bandwidth has driven the innovations we’ve seen over the years, like online sales (eBay, Amazon), cloud computing, corporate networking, social sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and so on. They are doubtless correct. They contend, however, that TB would stifle further growth of this kind.

Others say that unlimited broadband merely facilitates big downloads (such as p-2-p sharing) for free and, further, that it encourages piracy of music and movies along with the porn industry. No one is claiming that raising the price would stop piracy and porn; it would just make it more expensive for the consumer.

Proponents of TB maintain that a small percentage of users use the majority of bandwidth, and that it slows service for those who use it for business and other low-volume purposes. They claim that those people should be willing either to pay for their heavy use or have it confined to hours of the day (or night) when the internet is used the least. (When that would be, given the world-wide expansion of the Web and Internet, is anyone’s guess.)

The providers say they pay for the infrastructure, and they should be recompensed according to the amount it is used.

What do you think about Tiered Broadband? Is it a threat to democracy, piracy and the American Way, or are those who say it’s just a fair response to a behavioral problem the ones with the right of it? Leave a comment.

Personally, I think people should pay for the service they use. We already have tiered service in terms of speed. Since heavy use cuts speed for the rest who are also paying for it, I think it’s only reasonable for those folks to pay more, and the low-volume users less. Another possible solution would be to sequester heavy users in systems that can handle the volume — also at higher cost to the user.

What do you think? Now don’t go whining about your “rights.” The people who own the system have the rights; you don’t got squat except what it says in the fine print on the ISP contract. (Did you ever read one of those carefully?) The question is how much (and how) you’re willing to pay for their service, and whether or not you think the idea is reasonable. Do you think higher cost would change people’s behavior, or will they ignore it (as with gas prices, until recently) and continue doing the same stuff but paying more?

Leave a comment.

  • Aaron Anderson

    The first problem I have with TB is all of the ads on websites. With all the video and Flash based ads emerging out there, I would not want to waste my valuable bandwidth displaying those. As of right now, I don’t use any ad blockers (although I do use popup blockers) since I know ad revenue helps websites stay in business. However, if my bandwidth cost money, I would be more inclined to use an ad blocker which would be costly for website providers.

    The second is that this will also hurt companies that compete with the cable company and telcos. For instance, one may not want to use Skype due to TB, but will instead opt for the telco’s VoIP service that conveniently does not count against your bandwidth limit.

  • Greg Wildie

    You guys should look at the almost non-existent broadband system in Australia before you even consider tiered broadband. Here slow access with download limits is expensive and fast access is unaffordable for most. We started with a tiered system and it has stifled development no end.

    Streaming video and live conferencing are just about realities if you are a high end user in a commercial set up living in a city. Otherwise it is satellite broadband with all the glitches that entails if you want anything like fast in the country areas. And you pay for it, boy do you pay for it.

    If you fancy paying a hundred dollars a month for reliable middle range performance broadband, go tiered. If you like it fast cheap and effective, don’t go near the idea.

    Before you do the sums converting Aus dollars to US, remember that most Australian middle class earners are on less than $65,000.00 AU a year and in the country the wages and incomes are way less than that.

  • Mike Nelson

    Lets look at this logically. If you download a lot, you should pay for it. The question is how much is a lot? 5 gig a month? 10, 15 or 20? It should be a universal number, that everyone uses.

    Otherwise it is just going to be abused and the consumer will be ripped off if there is no standard.

  • NOODLEWILLY

    Therefore, as long as it is the little guy that gets screwed it is OK with me, or maybe I just don’t understand.

  • Rob Winearls

    Hi Chris ,
    Cannot believe you are so naive .Tiered broadband according to informed sources would leave smaller people
    like you with very little support .The like sof the big ISP and Microsoft would dominate the top tiered viewing and the smaller guys who a lot of us support will fall by the wayside .
    Suggest you read Cloudeight’s view on the matter then click to the video where some young people give their views .
    It does not seem anything but another proposal where the big guys get all the benefits and the small guys fade away into oblivion .
    I look forward to your views via the Lockergnome newsletter
    as least while you still survive .Very few people will want to pay more for access to lesser established info .

  • Rob Winearls

    Why should I moderate my comments .I have not sworn at or belitted anyone .You asked for comment and you got my feelings on the subject .

  • Joel Dubow

    Tiered broadband is a red-herring. Bandwidth is a commodity- you need more you put up another server rack. That is the main capital expense of ISP’s. The goal of tiered broadband is to get back to the salad days of price per bit for computer communications. That policy delayed the interned by ten years but was really good for the then ISP’s. Also, any rules limiting bandwidth need, according to law, to apply equally to all, and not discriminate according to what type of traffic it is.

    Right now if you need to supply data faster you need to purchase a bigger pipe and pay for outgoing capacity. The receiver or client ends have needs that vary over time and space. The original fee is meant to cover the total need. It is relatively easy to monitor and charge suppliers for their source volume. It is less so to monitor and charge users.

    Of course, this could be considered a market issue. If the government assures a truly competitive market place then users can choose freely and we’ll see what the price per bit crowd provides compared to the fixed contract firms. The problem comes with monopoly ownership of a region or legally mandated pricing per bit. That is an imposition and is non -competitive.

  • Joe

    I think it’s a great idea. I use my cable connection to play games like Call Of Duty and Team Fortress 2, and some email. The neighbors who share files and movies 24/7 are bandwidth hogs, and should pay more.

  • Mel

    I am wondering what effect this would have on those who use Linux? Most Linux users download 700 MB linux distributions and 200 to 300 Mb of updates. It is one of the reasons I use a high speed connection. I pay $47 a month and others who use a slower connection with the same company only pay $29. I have noticed that many ISPs are using band width throttling. I have roadrunner. Comcast is already charging by the amount of bandwidth used in some areas.
    Mel

  • Gene Gossett

    tiered internet service is just another way for the isp’s to get richer and control what you do and what you see. it is estimated that the 6 to 7 mbps service comcast offers for 52.95 without cable tv and 49.95 with cable tv only cost them less than 7 dollars a month including all over head. so lets add 3 dollars per customer for system upgrades and and a profit equal to the cost of service and the upgrades. this comes to 20 dollars per month versus 49.95 to 52.95. the isp’s really need to be limited to no more than 2 million connections to force competition again. not 2 million customers, but 2 million connections. because 2 million customers may be far more connections(example: comcast makes deals with all the apartment buildings in a city. the average number of unites per building is 30 apartments with say 1,000 apartment buildings in that city. now because of only having to count the main account comcast has 1,000 customers not 30,000). here is another good example of over pricing. comcast voip is 39.95 a month plus about 13% in taxes. i have a usb device for 19.95 a year and have the same level of service as i would get on the comcast plan plus no extra taxes. lets see do i pay magicjack 19.95 a year or do i pay comcast 541.72 a year for a difference of 521.77? i can think of a few things i could do with 523 dollars. http://www.magicjack.com

  • John McClanaghan

    So what happens when you are paying for a small download plan and windows does some updates that put you over the limit? What happens if your kid gets some new online game that first needs a huge patch to run; then uses large amounts of data to play. Then he/she is home sick from school and plays it all day!
    Ask the people on satellite if they like imposed limits during a big service pack download.
    Too much leeway for error on the ISPs part (and they have screwed mine up before) to be worthwhile. If my ISP goes to tiered pricing then I’ll take my business elsewhere. Not worth the hassle.

  • Bart

    I’d be supportive of tiered service pricing if I could control what I receive. Trouble is, there is a lot of unnecessary “stuff” that I can’t avoid — like flash animation (sometimes huge files) or advertising images. Sure, you can turn it off selectively, but if you do, you’re going to miss some content that you like. It’s sort of like cell phones: I don’t want to pay for incoming wrong numbers. Thanks, Bart.

  • Jack Bettencourt

    We do have some rights if, like here, the cable ISP has been granted a monopoly . Monopolies can be revoked. and that should be considered if tiered broadband is forced upon a captive clientel.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/microface/ Steven Leach

    I Pay for Speed Not Content. I have switched From teh gougers at AT&T to a local ISP CWNET and Full Spectrum because AT&T was blocking Bit Torrents, and Did Not Allow Access To Certain NewsGroups that I needed for My Work.
    After reading About AT&T and Comcast, I have Convinced Several companies in My area to switch as well.
    We pay for speed Not Content !!!!

  • Matt P

    I hate the idea of TB. I may not be an extreme downloader, but I’m probably a bit over the average user. Most of the time, I’m not downloading large amounts of data, but occassionally I’ll want to download a movie or Linux distro. Just because I do that a few times a year doesn’t mean I should have to pay a higher rate every month to use the internet (or a huge overage if I am only paying the standard rate). I think that most of the people who would be considered a “heavy downloader” are already paying more by upgrading to the higher bandwidth plans; why make them pay even more?

  • Ross

    Now here’ s a thought. We’ve basically given up our free transmission airwaves as of Feb 17, 2009 to industries our tax dollars humongously subsidized to build the infrastructure. Why not demand the completion of this high speed highway now that free out of the air transmission is pretty much something of the past rather than allowing the various providing industries to charge us again for what they never built in the first place.

    I know you all are knowledgeable to know that all 3 kinds of providers have totally avoided anti-trust over site. The lack of said over site has allowed the Telecoms to recombine to a pre breakup of an A.T.T. state, the cable providers are basically merged to 2 dominate players, & the possible consolidation of Echostar & Direct T.V. was politically nixed in favor of a sweet deal to Rupert Murdoch. Even though that potential monopoly would’ve freed up 5-9 satellites allowing for increased capacity & direct competition to the cable co.s strangle hold on capacity providing.

    If we muddle our selves down in the tier argument thats all the ” Toll road ” solution our officials will ever work towards.

    Demand equality to the rest of the worlds capacity, & force open competition to break the ever spiraling rate increases we’ve already paid for it.

    • HarryH

      Of course broadband providers want tiered service, it will generate more revenue. Having people pay for their usage presents a fair compromise as long as the added fees are reasonable, but will the fees be reasonable? The basic charge already is too high (IMHO) and really relates to a quasi-monopoly business with few choices. Cable is a shared medium, DSL is shared as well in terms of cloud usage.

      If TB comes about, I do hope it comes with some service level requirements. Right now Comcast appears to be using throttles when congestion builds. If I buy a GB but don’t get reasonable transfer rates, what real benefit do I have? There are times when Yahoo mail responds so slowly, I think I’ve returned to dial-up service. In that case, who is at fault? Please promise a level of service along with tiered pricing.

  • Stanley Baker

    Well I tried to comment but I guess using the name of a state is against the rules. I mention G.W.’s state and that makes my whole comment for some reason taboo. What the heck is that all about. I thought this was America. Censuring of our first amendment rights is illegal but this site does not seem to have the scruples they claim to have. It’s no wonder you want to make metering attractive.
    Anytime you meter a thing you make more money. That is what it is all about. If you think otherwise that P.T Barnum has a sign you can borrow, it says, “there is a sucker born every minute”.
    If this site is being overseen by an entity that will cut off comments based upon input you have the legal responsibility to tell us. If you don’t know about this than i suggest you look into it.
    I will wait for your explanation. Otherwise I will be less six newsletters from what I thought was an open forum.
    If you think that I am selling smoke just try to use the President’s state more than one time although I use it only once
    Wow am I disappointed Lockergnome. What’s next. You send goons to my house cause I make statements you didn’t like?
    I am almost sixty and I have to tell you this is a sad day when any site censures a person for expressing a thought. Chris this is your newsletter why would you let this happen?. I have read your articles for years. This is your site regardless of whose column this is. What’s with the censuring of a person’s thoughts?

  • http://members.atlantic.net/~jcd/ James C. Dunavant

    I already pay more for my DSL broadband service vs. dialup. The concept of “tiered broadband” makes no sense to me. Should dialup customers have to pay more or less for a “tiered dialup” access? Why should broadband users be singled out vs. dialup users? It’s the same Internet. I pay more for broadband because I want faster access. If you think about it, dialup users use more time on the Internet BECAUSE of their _slower_ access speed.

    // Jim
    http://members.atlantic.net/~jcd/

  • http://lastthing.wordpress.com Bill

    Stanley,
    I have no idea what you are talking about with regard to censorship. If someone is censoring the remarks, it isn’t me.

    Nonetheless, freedom of speech refers to public speech. This is a private site that is open to the public subject to conditions set by the owners. The free speech rights guaranteed by the Constitution do not apply here.

    It’s a shame you kids aren’t required to take Civics classes any more. I learned this stuff in the 9th Grade.