In reality our broadband usage is already metered. But the costs are largely with the ISPs and the profits are with the content providers. Like Amazon is demonstrating with the Kindle: your chances to succeed as a content provider increase if you ensure the means to your content are affordable. Amazon subsidized the Kindle to sell more e-books, Google subsidized it’s Android OS to get mobile ad-views and will subsidize the broadband connections to ensure people will keep watching it’s ads and use it’s cloud services.

If the value of broadband is not in the broadband itself, then the ISP must ensure that the user will pay for the broadband service as a means to get to the real booty. Like the electricity company that meters the electricity we need keep our house cool and power up the 42incher to watch the Superbowl. It is up to the content providers to decide if the ISP will send the bill to the consumer or if the costs will be hidden in the price of the real value we are looking for: how hungry is that Charlie.

http://www.geezam.com/jamaica%E2%80%99s-low-net-penetration/

I don’t think people are understanding why Google is doing the fiber project. Like the Nexus One, which many people viewed as an attempt to take over an industry, Google is using the KC fiber project to demonstrate that fiber to the home can be profitable. Google created the Nexus One to set the standard for flagship Android phones, and more importantly, to try to wean carriers and consumers off the bundled phone and service plans (which should be outlawed anyway). That attempt failed, mostly because consumers are challenged by math; they could not understand that they pay carriers for the subsidy many times over. Carriers obviously like the bundled model, because it locks consumers into their plans.

The two main telcos in the US have been slow to roll out FTTH, and Google understands the value of fiber to the entire web industry. Every business needs constant recycling of profits, otherwise it stagnates and stops growing. ATT and VZ would rather shift customers from wired broadband to broadband wireless, where they can charge a lot more, and have less competition, so they have been reluctant to seriously invest in fiber. The KC project is Google’s attempt to expose how wrong they are, and hopefully put some pressure on ISPs to upgrade their plant. If Google can make a profit on KC, then other companies and entrepreneurs may follow their lead and build fiber networks in other cities.