Tiered Internet service

If you have been around the blogs or the technology news websites, you would have seen that Time-Warner Cable has finally begun their tiered Internet testing in Texas.

First, I would like to applaud TWC for taking this step in my own way. *Golf claps*. Seriously though at least TWC is attempting to find a solution to a potentially bad problem.

Time for the criticism. Most of us don't know how much data we transmit in any given month. The service in Texas does provide a metering device to track the usage, but where did the 40GB number come into play as the limit? I cannot say for certain, because I really have no idea what my data download statistics are, but 40GB seems fairly small. Especially when TWC is also including uploading traffic in the data count. What about advertising, sure it may be small amounts, but why should ISP subscribers pay for advertisements? Especially the annoying advertisements that pop up and slide across your screen, not allowing you to accurately hit the 'close' option? These are some smaller, perhaps even trivial aspects that have not been fully explored. Hopefully that the TWC experiment will allow that exploration and for adjustments.

Generally for any ISP exploring pay-per-byte(PPB)...

My understanding is that there is an issue with network management and that certain people are, perhaps, abusing or taking full advantage of a system. For me I am wanting some sort of trade-off from the ISPs. If consumers can move to pay-per-byte with hard limits, from pay-per-month with few limits, what is left to bargain with other than the guarantee of service levels. Part of the reason this is being tested is to examine network effects and hopefully cut down on the high bandwidth users. If consumers make that trade, then there should be some return for their business rather than restrictions on downloads .

$/MB: Pay per bit----Coming Soon?!

There was a very interesting article written by Leslie Cauley, for USA Today.

The question of whether paying per bit, ppb, will work is up to the consumers in as much as they may or may not go for the plan. Americans have been sold so well on the idea that Internet access is unlimited to download amounts or content (except the illegal content). What is the benefit for consumers of going to ppb? At the moment it is just chitchat, but what improvements would consumers obtain?

For my own part, I am not too worried about ppb. However, I do not know how much data I transmit on my connection. Three computers and a roommate, may create more traffic than I believe. However, I would want to see incredible strides in download speeds and network uptime in exchange for ppb. That is just for starters though. As talk increases about switching to this business model, further discussion would need to be had concerning the requirements that consumers would place on ISPs.