[governance] Not Network Neutrality: Bandwidth pricing is the

[McTim]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 8:49 PM, Garth Graham <garth.graham at telus.net> wrote:
> On 15-Apr-08, at 1:54 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> > The only way out of that dilemma is for customers to wise up and realize
> > that you don't get something for nothing. Customers will need to learn
> > to perceive the difference between a good service that costs a bit more
> > and a shared flat-rate service that keeps them waiting.
> >
>
>  If only!  I am willing to pay a lot more for "good service" (which ipso
> facto includes net neutrality) if it were available to me.  But it's not
> (and I live in an urban area of 450,000 people).  And, in Canada, with only
> 4 prime carriers now being de-regulated in favour of "market-based
> approaches," it isn't going to be.  In the name of "customer service," they
> are going to throttle bandwidth use to avoid building adequate capacity into
> the last mile.  As citizens (not customers), it's way past time to "demand"
> public policy that supports municipal ownership of open networks as a
> commons-based public utility.

Oh yes, let's *demand* that.  I can imagine an open network run by the
kampala city council would give me cheaper bandwidth than I have now
(currently 75 USD per month plus 18% VAT) for
16k CIR burst to 256 (reliably 128kbits/sec down and 96k up).

Of course, it would take years to build (with donor cash) and only
work for a matter of days before the generator ran out of
fuel...permanently, as someone would have stolen the cash needed to
buy more. By the time more fuel was procured, the generator would have
been stolen, but, hey, it could work in an alternative universe.
maybe even yours.  I can see it working in Canada, certainly, but it
would be very very expensive.

Politically it would be very difficult to get done. Can you imagine
the hue and cry about raising local tax rates so that "those darn
college kids can surf for porn"  I can.   Not too mention the
opposition from commercial providers.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance