FCC Boss Backs Metering the Internet 515
An anonymous reader writes "FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has publicly backed usage-based pricing for wired internet access at the cable industry's annual NCTA Show. He makes the claim that it would drive network efficiency. Currently most internet service providers charge a flat fee and price their packages based on the speed of the service, while wireless providers are reaping record profits by charging based on usage, similar to the way utilities charge for electricity. By switching to this model, the cable companies can increase their profitibility while at the same time blocking consumers from cutting the cord and getting their TV services online."
Re:Their wet dream (Score:5, Informative)
it will be due to Congress forcing them to make bad business decisions through legislation.
Re:Their wet dream (Score:4, Informative)
10 cents a minute would likely cost me... $900 a month. Not to bad, eh? Just go back to reading books and watching the tube for entertainment, and downloading e-mail once a day. Hey, this might even save the post office...
They're not talking about per-minute billing, they're talking about per-gigabyte billing. Your cell phone is connected 24/7 as well, but they bill you for the amount of data you actually send through the network, rather than the speed tier you're on. All cell phones are on essentially the same speed tier, which is "whatever the maximum your phone will support at the moment".
It's a ridiculous assumption though, because once the capacity's there, it costs about the same regardless of whether you use it or not.
Re:Innovate or become obsolete. That's where it's (Score:5, Informative)
They have been innovating. You can only fit so many channel frequencies into a line before you have to upgrade the line your using or find a new way of transmitting over the existing infrastructure. Any innovation that would allow for an exponential addition of channels to the existing infrastructure would be a gold mine. They're trying, and they're all in it together. When was the last time you heard of any one cable company inventing anything? They don't. They have a group dedicated [cablelabs.com] to research which helps all of them.. Anything that the group comes up with is made an industry standard, basically IEEE for cable.
But going back to the infrastructure: cable companies are obviously bound to this. And it costs a lot to both maintain and upgrade. The first half of the 2000's many companies used cable internet and later cheap phone service to multiple advantages.
1 was generating more revenue by increasing the amount of services their customers subscribed too. This also lead to increased customer loyalty, since its one thing to cancel just your internet service if a company pisses you off but another all together to consider dropping a company that hosts your TV, Internet, and phone.In upgrading a system of say, 50k subscribers you could double the amount of money it generated, which means
2 the increased revenue offset the costs of upgrading systems to support the new features. Think back 10 years ago, what was the fastest speed you saw in major cities? 3-5 Mbps if that. Some area's have 50+ Mbps now.
3 by increasing the capacity when HD came around many systems where already ready for the initial wave of channels. They did innovate, which is why many area's have 50+ HD channels available now if you have an HD converter. Without the investment into rewiring many area's, cable would never be about to touch satellite as far as competition in many area's.
Upgrading systems costs an insane amount of money. That more than anything is the reason that cable monopolies exist, the cost of entry prohibits competition. To install a new plant in an town of 50k takes something to the tune of 2-3 million dollars, with zero guarantee on how long it will take to recover that cost, if ever. Cable lines have reached their limit unless someone comes up with a new way of multiplexing, and if its that significant a step up you'll see it deployed very rapidly. Some companies are switching to fiber but the cost is insane. And where as if someone cuts a cable line the service could be back up in an hour, if someone cuts a fiber line it could take significantly longer.
Having said all that, the "Usage Allowance Plan" is a crock of shit. It is exactly what it is being labeled as, a stop gap measure to keep people from dumping the TV service. Because cable companies get charged by the broadcasters based on their install base*, which includes internet only customers in some cases, they're trying to stop the current trend of "Internet for everything" since it inverts #1 & 2: less revenue generated, but now node capacity has to be increased. Does it make it fair for the consumer? Of course not. Are the amounts for the usage plans in use by the larger companies fair? Considering that a large % of the subscribers never come close to the cap, it depends. COULD they offer an 'unlimited' package? Yes. Which is why its a crock of shit, their could be a way to pay more if you use more, but thanks to other industries showing that micro-payments for additional service is a viable model for monopolies that isn't likely to happen. Hence this whole hullabaloo, they're trying to have their cake and squeeze money out of it too.
*ask anyone who's worked for a Cable call center about NFL network. Just don't do it when they're holding something stabby.
Re:Their wet dream (Score:5, Informative)
They have been forced by Congress to fully fund their pensions 75 years out. That means pensions for employees who haven't even been born yet.
It's the GOP's way of killing the USPS so they can drive business to their asshole buddies. SOP.
Re:Mud! (Score:4, Informative)
http://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/how-much-bandwidth-does-world-of-warcraft-use [battle.net]
As a rough guide, an hour of typical play will result in around 40MB of data being Downloaded, and 4MB being Uploaded.
Or, in other words this would eat through my mobile data usage limit of 250 MB in under 6 hours.
Re:I may be wrong ... (Score:5, Informative)
If it wasn't for the liberal republicans
That was when you went full retarded.
Liberal Republicans? Are you fucking kidding? The Republican Party has gone screaming waaaaaay to the right over the last couple decades. The moderates are being purged every election cycle. How many Goldwater Republicans are there these days?
OT: You are mostly wrong (Score:5, Informative)
This is slightly off the mark, and worth an OT reply, I think. (I am motivated in part by also having a Canadian background; I am now a naturalized US citizen.)
The electoral college is made up of "electors", with one elector being in the college for each congressman and senator, plus three additional electors for the District of Columbia (represent!). The electors are nominally free to vote for any eligible presidential candidate, but in practice vote for the candidate who wins a majority of the votes in their state, and have done so in every modern election.
The reason a president can win the electoral college without winning the popular vote is that the electors in the electoral college are not apportioned according to population. Each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, and various states' congressional districts are different sizes in practice. This means that low-population states are over-represented in the college relative to their proportion of the population, so it's possible to put together a majority of electoral college votes corresponding to a minority of US voters.
The possibility that a member of the electoral college might vote for a different candidate than the popular vote in their state has a name, it's called the "faithless elector". This does happen, but has never changed the outcome of a US election.