Just because the major players don’t want to upgrade their hardware they need to charge by the byte? Ridiculous. I already hate my ISP and think they are overpriced for the lackluster service with probably the most outdated hardware known to man, I wouldn’t want to hate them more.

@Ryan – why won’t you get Skype and Flash on your mobile without a new pricing plan? Last I checked there are lots of VoIP apps for cell phones out there and being developed. Also, Flash is available on some of the pricier cell phones already, I think.

@Alex – I’m waiting for TV to go to usage-based pricing models too. For $x/month you get N hours of TV, I can see it now. But, as we all know that would kill TV viewership. And, as I have been saying, I think this usage-based pricing will have a dramatic impact on Internet usage.

@DMNTD – Agreed. We’re already paying too much. The service providers are bloated and are using this pricing model to extract more money from the consumer instead of trimming their business for profitability.

@Reed (Dave) – MSFT can not like this much at all. I’m hoping that they and the other large content providers stop usage-based pricing in its tracks.

@Alex – I could not agree with your last paragraph more.

That delusion false-capitalistic perspective on corruption is exactly why our financial system is in the condition it’s in right now. It’s all well and good, but the result is always the same – that “open” market you seem to magically think will happen never does and when the shit hits the fan the ra-ra free market boys who’ve milked the system go running to mommy and daddy for a new car, Christmas money, and warm glass of milk.

Meanwhile establishing a state of the art high bandwidth web infrastructure and getting every American possible online should be our top priority. One on-par with the creation of the rail system and international highways in period following the Industrial revolution.

Interesting that nobody objects to paying for cloud services on a usage basis. Many of us pay for web hosting accounts that have usage based bandwidth pricing, with a set rate for a reasonable number of gigs, and a burst rate above that. Why do we object to end user capped pricing but not to web hosting pricing? Because the cap is high enough that it doesn’t matter to most of us with $10/month plans at dreamhost.

And why haven’t we talked about the fact that outside of most larger cities, the majority of 802.11 home installs aren’t even WEP protected? I can’t imagine the headaches an ISP would face when grandma calls to say she only sent 2 emails and surfed a bit, but had 100Gb? Who will do the work to figure out that someone else used the bandwidth?

This kind of pricing would legitimize lame claims that using open wifi is actually theft.

On the positive side, this gives each of us with capped plans the ability to have legal claims against spammers.

Perhaps we could make claims against every auto-updating service on our computer about which we were not legally informed. Imagine the class action lawsuits against iTunes, MSFT, and Symantec as hordes of users who thought they paid $50/year for “free updates” realize that they aren’t free anymore. Did the click-through licensing agreement state that? Some did, some didn’t, I’d imagine. Software players should be screaming about usage based pricing as much as the content providers.

And let’s think, which largest software company is also a major content provider…Microsoft. They have the most to lose from this, and enough money to fix it, if only their software guys spoke to their content guys…

YES profit is a wanting ambition BUT WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH? Bottom line I will not condone such ignorance…WHY should I get even poorer so THEY can get even richer..nope, not on my watch. I opt out. Face it, no amount of pretty talk ever saves these vultures.

It’s abusive, and counter to consumer’s rights, and the best interests of the industry as a whole.

Further, it’s similar to the TV model – how on earth can they logically justify charging us for the hardware, then the right to use/amount used, while diluting the service received by spam, advertising and the like. TV is a ripoff and the fact that in this type of structure I have to deal with, sort through and pay for a service where 80% of it is forced.

The only way this looks like a good idea, is if you’re a telco company or a politician taking a bribe.

I want Skype and Flash on my iPhone(the complete net in the palm of my hands not a hobbled one), but that wont happen without metered bandwidth plans.

The plans need to be generous though (500GB for 50 bucks).

from bt.com:

[...]
5. What happens if I exceed my monthly usage allowance?

If you exceed your usage allowance for two months in a row we will charge 60p for each excess GB (gigabyte) you have used (rounded up to the nearest GB). We won’t charge you for the first month’s excess usage, but we will keep charging if you carry on exceeding your allowance in the following months. This charge will appear on your BT bill.

There is no monthly usage allowance for Option 3 customers and you can enjoy unlimited usage for no extra charge subject to the Fair Usage Policy.

6. How do I know if I have exceeded my monthly usage allowance?

We will email to tell you if you exceed your usage allowance and warn you about our charges if you do it again. If you exceed your usage allowance in the next month, we will email you again saying what our charges are (see point 5 above). If you choose to upgrade to a higher usage package after your first usage warning email, we will waive the charges. You can upgrade either online or by calling the number given in the email we send you.

[...]

The problem with the current Google muni wifi stuff is that it isn’t good enough quality to be interesting as a replacement for a real SP.

If they were to build WiMax or LTE network to compete with SPs, they end up with all the infrastructure costs of the incumbents, except for perhaps a reduced last mile cost because of a wireless rather than wired solution. Shortly they become an incumbent, which is not a very good place to be.

The risk to Google is that they will end up with largely the same low margin physical plant business as the SP – only with the “last-mover” advantage of being able to use the latest network gear and technology to reduce costs.

If you were Google, would it make sense to move from a high margin, lightly regulated advertising business to a lower margin, physical plant business that requires a lot more bodies to operate? It only makes sense if they can get enough additional revenue to offset the costs.

We are moving from walled gardens to dumb pipes, both in the wired and wireless worlds. As SPs lose the walled garden revenue, they will need to make it up through increasing the price of dumb pipe. The fairest way to do that is to charge by the byte past some medium level of usage.

Doc