This isn't the first such effort in the region. Last Fall, Frontier changed their terms of service to include a very low (5GB/month) cap. After an outcry, including a website dedicated to stop the cap, Frontier backed down.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of usage-based Internet pricing, but all of the usage tiering I've seen is unrealistic. Time-Warner's is no exception: by one calculation, their top tier, which is still pretty limited, would lead to $200/month in overage charges for a family whose use I'd classify as "moderate".
I have yet to see a pricing plan that acknowledges that the average user in 2009 spends a fair amount of time on YouTube, that Internet use will grow, and that the Internet provider's cost for raw bandwidth has been shrinking. These plans also ignore that broadband Internet has been sold on basis of speed, not usage, for the last decade, and that the Internet providers have cut their own throats by promising ever-greater speeds without major price increases.
Most importantly, none of these pricing plans give anything to get their greatly increased profits. These new plans don't guarantee speed or availability. They just demand much more money for less service.
There's little or no competition in the home Internet market -- Time-Warner has a monopoly in large parts of the 29th district. One way to get a real market here and elsewhere is to treat Internet service the way we treat telephone service. Local service - the connection to the nearest switching center - would be the responsibility of Time-Warner or Frontier and have a regulated, low price based on the actual cost of delivering the service. At the switching center, other, nationwide bandwidth providers would be able to compete with Frontier or Time-Warner for our Internet business.
Like long-distance, once real competition hit the market, we'd see an ever-diminishing cost for Internet bandwidth. It's only because TWC and Frontier have a monopoly that they'd even consider $200/month Internet pricing. Their recent actions have shown that their Internet monopoly needs to be broken.
]]>This isn't the first such effort in the region. Last Fall, Frontier changed their terms of service to include a very low (5GB/month) cap. After an outcry, including a website dedicated to stop the cap, Frontier backed down.
There's nothing wrong with the concept of usage-based Internet pricing, but all of the usage tiering I've seen is unrealistic. Time-Warner's is no exception: by one calculation, their top tier, which is still pretty limited, would lead to $200/month in overage charges for a family whose use I'd classify as "moderate".
I have yet to see a pricing plan that acknowledges that the average user in 2009 spends a fair amount of time on YouTube, that Internet use will grow, and that the Internet provider's cost for raw bandwidth has been shrinking. These plans also ignore that broadband Internet has been sold on basis of speed, not usage, for the last decade, and that the Internet providers have cut their own throats by promising ever-greater speeds without major price increases.
Most importantly, none of these pricing plans give anything to get their greatly increased profits. These new plans don't guarantee speed or availability. They just demand much more money for less service.
There's little or no competition in the home Internet market -- Time-Warner has a monopoly in large parts of the 29th district. One way to get a real market here and elsewhere is to treat Internet service the way we treat telephone service. Local service - the connection to the nearest switching center - would be the responsibility of Time-Warner or Frontier and have a regulated, low price based on the actual cost of delivering the service. At the switching center, other, nationwide bandwidth providers would be able to compete with Frontier or Time-Warner for our Internet business.
Like long-distance, once real competition hit the market, we'd see an ever-diminishing cost for Internet bandwidth. It's only because TWC and Frontier have a monopoly that they'd even consider $200/month Internet pricing. Their recent actions have shown that their Internet monopoly needs to be broken.
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