[governance] SHOULD BANDWIDTH BE METERED?

[McTim]

Hi,

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 5:01 PM, kwasi boakye-akyeampong
<kboakye1 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> There is heated debate currently in the UK about whether Internet bandwidth
> should be metered. Most ISPs contend that today's applications increasingly
> put pressure on bandwidth which is not infinite, as a result there should be
> a way of controlling consumption.

Yes, this "way' is typically called a contract.

Current pricing models allow most users
> unlimited downloads.

but in the UK, there are also "pay-per-bit" models.

> Some users argue that things work out since not every one is a heavy user.
> Most domestic users, in fact, use the Net basically for checking their mails
> and hardly download stuff.
>

true.

> Are the ISPs complaints legitimate?

sure. Selling IP connectivity is a very low margin commodity game.
When your customers consume more of the commodity (but don't pay you
any more, you have to provision more, this is costly.  Your profits
shrink to near zero and some of your competition (in the UK at least)
offer connectivity for zero GBP per month.


>Are video-rich websites like youtube
> having significant impact yet?

certainly, though in the UK, it's more aboout BBC's iPlayer I think.


-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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