FCC Approving Pay-As-You-Go Internet Plans 414
An anonymous reader writes "As details emerge about the Federal Communications Commission's controversial proposal for regulating Internet providers, a provision that would allow companies to bill customers for how much they surf the Web is drawing special scrutiny. Analysts say pay-as-you-go Internet access could put the brakes on the burgeoning online video industry, handing a victory to cable and satellite TV providers. Public interest groups say that trend will lead to a widening gap in Internet use in which the wealthiest would have the greatest access."
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Bandwidth huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA = about 20k
Web 2.0 crap plus ads= 1.6 megs
or some such
Lynx Lives Again!
A la carte cables (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how cable companies all want us to pay as we go for internet access, yet still insist on pushing bundlings of hundreds of TV channels on us if we want to use cable TV.
I might be okay with this on one condition... (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
They will also want to charge content creators on the same bandwidth so they can profit more on the same bandwidth, but not actually invest into upgrading their infrastructure to handle the traffic and thus negating the need to have tiered or metered plans.
Captialism, ho.
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm looking at it and it says "to regulate commerce", not "to regulate trade wars". If one of the reasons was to prevent trade wars, then it succeeds, sometimes. If another was to ensure the equitable distribution of federally-funded trade protections and infrastructure improvements, then it succeeds, sometimes.
Ad Blocking (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
The government's meddling in business is what has kept this from occurring ten years ago, champ. Note that this is the FCC considering a RULE CHANGE. If the FCC had never been around to create such a rule, we would have already seen this happen.
Having said that, I'm very, very, very cautiously optimistic that this will only have a short-term effect. Streaming HD (in my case, via Netflix) has gone from a "that would be cool" to something I do almost every day within three years, and despite my /. account, I'm not a bleeding edge type. The difference between "normal internet user" and "person who streams a shitload of video" is blurring and is probably going to disappear within the next 18 months. And people just aren't going to pay $200/month for internet unless there's a massive speed increase, and even then, probably not.
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
This mis-interpretation is pretty much exactly how that clause has made the Constitution completely meaningless.
It was a harmless little addendum that pretty much everyone considered perfectly safe. The point was to keep trade "regular" among the States. So that, for example, Virginia isn't allowed to attach extra tariffs to goods passing through from New York.
Now everyone thinks it means "Congress can do anything it wants.
Re:Man, if only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Electricity and gas are unlike bandwidth. They are limited in a way bandwidth isn't. If you use a unit of gas, you have to generate more. On the other hand, if you use a unit of bandwidth there's another unit waiting for you. Conversely, if you don't use a unit of gas you can save it for later. If you don't use a unit of bandwidth it's gone forever, and it costs the same to maintain the network whether you use it or not.
Pricing structure should encourage people to conserve gas and electricity. Networks (computer and phone) have to be maximally utilized to provide the lowest cost per packet. Pricing per megabyte discourages maximal utilization which leads to waste.
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. It isn't the ISPs that are pushing for it, even though they will benefit...
It's the MIAA and RIAA that are pushing for it. They're banking on making it expensive to pirate media in order to diminish how often it happens!
I think this would encourage piracy. If a person has to pay as they go, wouldn't it be cheaper to download a single compressed file, maybe even of lower quality, instead of streaming with commercials & all the other crap?
Re:I might be okay with this on one condition... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd go a step further...cable boxes and satellite boxes are pretty advanced....so I should only pay for the time that I'm watching the channels too.
Weeelll, you see, the thing is: It doesn't actually cost us anything let you access 10 of our channels vs 500 channels.
This is because Satellite TV transmits all channels all the time to just about everywhere around you. So, it really doesn't cost us anything more if you watch TV constantly instead of only 10 minutes a day, and satellite distribution to 1 million customers doesn't cost us any more than distribution to one customer.
We've successfully tricked most people into thinking that a huge price increase for twice the number of channels is reasonable when, in fact, all we do is change the DRM keys in your set-top box so that you can decode the extra channels that we are sending to you (and everyone else in your city) anyhow.
Oh, and extra monthly fee for having a 2nd set top box? Ha ha ha, we make you pay for the set-top box, then charge you extra per month for something that costs us nothing to transmit! People gladly hand us more money Hand over Fist, it's amazing how dumb they are!
With Cable it's a bit different, we pay to maintain the lines, but other than that, it's the same.
TV is a purely distribution only system, there is no "on demand". The Internet is a totally different beast (which we use to provide some on-demand services). With the Internet, we try to send you only the data you request. Actually, we don't do that, we send any data destined for your IP, whether you wanted it or not, so beware of DDoS attacks because your pay-as-you-go bill will be humorously expensive.