[neonfunk]

I actually agree with metering; I think it's the only fair measure. Granted, the metering you describe sounds atrocious, and there'll probably be a long messy transition to the point where our internet bill is more like our electric bill.

But imagine this: on mobile networks, instead of voice minutes, text messages, data caps, fees for tethering, and every other scheme the Telcos are concocting right now (with regard to charging for individual services), we instead have a single measure of our usage — data — and our bill starts at something reasonable like $5 or $10 a month.

The problem with "unlimited" in my view is that it conditions us to think that said resource really is unlimited, versus, say, electricity where we are incentivized to be aware of our usage. Now, if they're going to charge $2 per GB above some arbitrary cap — that's clearly absurd. But to start the bill very low (for the basic connection), and then charge, say, 10¢ or 15¢ per GB? Sign me up.

[lsc]

Metering only makes sense if the costs vary with usage. In the case of DSL, the vast majority of the cost is the cost of maintaining the copper pair to your house, and that cost largely doesn't change, regardless of usage.

Now, if the line from the CO (where the DSL terminates) to the internet was a significant bit of the cost, I'd agree with you. But my understanding is that the line from the CO to the 'net is a very small cost compared to the cost of all those copper pairs.

You also have a point when it comes to shared-loop technologies like cable. Metering is probably the most fair way to decide who gets what percentage of the limited fixed loop. (and probably the best way to get the telco to add more capacity when a loop becomes overloaded)

I'm just saying, the last-mile has many situations where running the connection, regardless of how much you use that connection, dominates the cost. And in those cases, "unlimited" (up to your port speed) billing makes a whole lot of sense.

[zmmmmm]

> Metering only makes sense if the costs vary with usage ... in the case of DSL, the vast majority of the cost is the cost of maintaining the copper pair to your house, and that cost largely doesn't change, regardless of usage.

That's a somewhat naive view of things. It only works if all the upstream equipment has infinite capacity. If you (and others like you) use 275GB instead of 10GB then it absolutely does cause more equipment to have to be installed upstream, which I don't think is an insignificant cost.

I'm like the GP - I wish every connection was metered, the problem is not metering, but the rate which invariably seems to be way above what is reasonable. Metering seems to always just be a cynical strategy to exploit naive users who don't know how much bandwidth they consume (bill shock, etc) rather than a rational economic way of sharing a limited resource.

[patrickgzill]

It is not at all naive, it is very accurate.

After the connection hits the DSLAM it goes onto fiber, which starts at 1 Gbps capacity and goes up to either 40Gbps or 100Gbps per port. Only in the smallest markets would they use a T3/DS3 connection.

Actual bandwidth costs for 200GB (which is about 1Mbps) over the course of a month are about $1 USD in almost any major US city.

Even assuming 4x the cost for Canada's smaller market size, we are talking about a ($4 into $55 upcharge) 13 times markup once the cost of the basic connection, tech support, marketing, etc. is covered by the initial $31.95.

[vacri]

Sounds like a bargain. There's a business opportunity for you!

[nikster]

I think this hits on the real, underlying issue: There is no free market competition in internet access. In the case of Canada it appears one state-owned company owns all the physical lines, and that company is starting to meter access.

So, a sensible approach by the government would be to review the actual access costs - whether it's $2 / 100GB or some other figure - then fix the price at that level. Review it every year. Fair for all. I am sure the guy using 275GB/month wouldn't mind paying $4 for it.

Unlimited access is unrealistic, as is gauging the public for 10x the fair value _when you're a monopolist_.

[jarek]

The really stinging part is that Bell isn't state owned, even though it certainly acts the part.

[napierzaza]

Bandwidth is sold in bulk, pennies by the gigabyte. Not dollars. It's not just covering their costs, it's obscene.

[danbmil99]

good argument for a real marketplace, instead of anti-capitalist net neutrality zealots on the one hand, and robber-baron monopolists on the other.

[vacri]

"In the case of DSL, the vast majority of the cost is the cost of maintaining the copper pair to your house, and that cost largely doesn't change, regardless of usage."

Pure nonsense. ISPs have to pay data by volume to upstream providers.

[nikster]

"ISPs have to pay data by volume to upstream providers"

Yes, they do. The question is how much. Chances are it's nowhere near $2.... charging whatever you want is fair game in a free market, but not when you're a monopolist.

[jarek]

Which absolutely does not rule out the possibility that the data cost is much smaller than the cost of maintaining the copper. Do you have the numbers?

[vacri]

I do not at the moment - I perhaps phrased it poorly - but the cost of the in-ground copper wire is but one part of the costs of an ISP - datacenters, call centres, exchanges + dslams, specialist staff, CEO's bonus pay, so on and so forth. To paint the cost of DSL as almost entirely maintenance of the in-ground copper is nonsense.

[Dylan16807]

Well, that's going into the company to provide you with that in-ground wire. It's in the base cost, not affected by how much data you use, which was the main point. Marginal data is cheap.

[vacri]

So you're claiming that the only part of managing throughput is the in-ground wires? That ISPs don't use network admins to manage load congestion? That ISPs don't have to purchase new hardware and other capacity to handle increased bandwidth consumption?

Do you think all ISPs are running off the ancient network equipment they were originally set up with back in the day?

I'm honestly surpised that on /Hacker News/ of all places, so many people thing that the only thing contributing to their bandwidth cost is in-ground copper.

[jacquesm]

A basic 20 Mbit connection goes for about $75 in Europe, that's 1.1 ct / Gigabyte (if my back-of-the-envelope math is correct). 40 Mbit goes for about $100 / month.

Metered is out, flat-rate is the future. The only hold-outs will be the mobile carriers and even there I already see flat-rate offerings.

$5 or $10 / month would not work due to fixed costs and write-off on equipment higher than that. But once the equipment is paid for you might as well use it to its full ability without being penalized further.

[Ras_]

N. Europe:

I have 110/10M (cable-tv network) in Finland for $53. More widely available 24/1M DSL goes for $46. Usage caps are unheard of in cabled internet.

Cheap, non-capped mobile internet has recently exploded - caps will be introduced. Our biggest telco TeliaSonera has only capped versions since the launch of iPhone (they were were forced and willing to pay extra). Other companies haven't introduced restrictions, but since Android-based smartphones became popular in 2010 and currently log the most data usage per unit, this will soon change.

Mobile internet is also very popular with plain computers by using 3G usb-dongles, which telcos give free of charge when you sign up for 12/24 months. Typical offer is uncapped 384k for $6.7 or 1M for $12 (actual rates vary often due to congestion - p2p users are a major pain in the butt with 3G networks). These are available nationwide with no geological price differentiation.

In Sweden broadband is quite much cheaper. The government has been heavily involved in building fiber with subsidies, tax breaks and legal requirements to municipal providers. (IT Bill 2000) http://www.broad-band.gr/content/events/docs/Swedish_broadba...

[antihero]

In the UK you can get Virgin 50MB with no caps for about £30~/month.

[Swannie]

It's not perfect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Media#Bandwidth_throttli...

But it's a good way of solving some of the challenges. But more and more people will start hitting that throttling soon, as people start using LoveFilm streaming, etc.

[antihero]

You don't get throttled if you have XXL, though.

[wildmXranat]

Your intentions are good, but I would not put that much faith int telcos. Almost every high-speed line is one of many that are oversold. The traffic that people have been paying for in past years, is just starting to be utilized. There are many years of pure profit in Bell's coffers.

The piece of pie in Canadian market didn't shrink, it evolved slightly out of bounds of Bell and Rogers oligopoly, and UBB attempts to push you back into that fold.

What's even worse, there can't be any competition as firms are not allowed to lay competing cable infrastructure.

[Bud]

The idea that metering is or will be "fair" as applied by rapacious telecoms is beyond hilarious.

You honestly think the rate will be within an order of magnitude of your guess? Pardon me while I get a hernia from laughter.

[kcdenman]

The telecoms will be as rapacious as the rules of the game allow them to be. As with all metered utilities the price needs to be regulated so that the consumer avoids abusive pricing. The question to be answered periodically will be how much does a GB cost for the telecom to provide a customer and what is a fair profit to sustain infrastructure development.

Without a meter system in place the flat rate will penalize small bandwidth users and let high bandwidth users get the bargain.

I agree that if the pricing were completely up to the telecoms they would ravage our wallets until we are eating ramen noodles 7 days a week. However, given their position of power they will have to openly defend their claims to raising unit prices in court.

[caf]

The problem with "just pay for data" is that mobile voice calls use such a tiny amount of data that either the cost of voice would have to drop by several orders of magnitude, or the price of data would have to be so astronomical as to make web browsing unaffordable.

This is the problem that telcos have been struggling with in terms of mobile data for years - they don't want to give up their fat margins on voice, but the actual bytes used by voice calls is trivial.

[moultano]

It seems that you are paying for two things with your bill, the ubiquity of the network, and the marginal amount of data you use. It seems reasonable that the capital build out be paid for with a fixed monthly bill, while the marginal amount of data usage be metered on top. They don't necessarily have to lose their margins on voice, just build that into the fixed monthly cost.

[Swannie]

It's tricky though, because they have built out, and have to maintain, quite a large infrastructure to cope with voice alone. It extends from billing, through to terminating calls on other networks, running voice mail systems, etc.

There's arguably a lot of room for MVNOs only offering data. (In Australia DoDo offered such for the lowest price per GB).

[skymt]

Universal bandwidth metering would certainly incentivize moderation. For starters, it would immediately kill the Internet advertising industry, as just about every Internet user would moderate the bandwidth they spend on ads by installing Adblock Plus.

[zacharycohn]

You could look at nothing but google ads for a month and your bandwidth wouldn't be near what it'd be if you had just watched a single HD movie over netflix.

[petsos]

Picking the two extremes does not prove your point. A lot of people are pissed with ads right now. Imagine if they would have to pay for them too (even pennies).

[zacharycohn]

I wasn't picking extremes, simply pointing out how little ads would effect you.

Besides, doesn't Adblock work client-side? You'd still download and pay for the ads, you just wouldn't see them.

[cscheid]

Not when the ads come from different domains (which is the case for 99% of the annoying flash ads). Adblock stops all requests to these domains. Incidentally, this is also why Adblock is a hit with privacy-conscious people - it mitigates tracking through log file analysis.

[spankythemonk]

no. picture and flash ads are separate HTTP requests. AdBlock/FlashBlock work by not making those requests. You will save bandwidth, but as you have pointed out, it's a drop in the ocean compared to watching a HD movie or even a 10min youtube clip.

[barrkel]

Fixed prices for fixed sizes of data isn't efficient, economically speaking, because marginal costs are not proportional to marginal data transit; either the price is too low to prevent congestion at peak times, or it's too high and leaves pipes underutilized at off-peak times - and the times don't lend themselves to simplistic on-off peak analysis.

What you want is spot prices dependent on congestion, but that creates a different problem, opacity in pricing, where people will be fearful to use owing to uncertainty in how much it will cost.

I think the fairest mechanism is probably some kind of QoS by inverse usage: where congestion occurs, drop packets belonging to users who transfer the most. Unfortunately, I'd expect that to be computationally infeasible, as it would require fairly complex dynamic and stateful logic in routers to process the accounting and make decisions on a packet by packed basis fast enough.

[gyom]

I also agree with metering if we're charged prices that we consider reasonable (defined by the prices that most people are paying elsewhere in the world).

I'd like to pay for internet like I pay for electricity. We pay by the kW*h and that's it. I think it'd be nice to pay a higher rate for electricity / internet during the day if it meant that we'd pay a lower rate during the night.

I keep hearing about how europeans get the mobile phone services waaaay cheaper than we do here. Some guy in a TED Talk said that cell phones were common in poor regions of Africa. There's no way that these poor people are paying what I pay for texting on a mobile phone. :P

[teamonkey]

Yes.

I came to Canada from the UK and I reckon it's about 50% more expensive for DSL/cable data over here, but faster speeds are more common (in the cities at least). Usage caps are not unusual with the larger ISPs in the UK, nor is traffic shaping/blocking, but at least the carriers are obliged by law to resell to other ISPs at a reasonable rate.

Mobile phones are, IMO, in a completely different ballpark though. Canada is literally years behind Europe and the same companies that are monopolising the landline networks have been abusing their mobile monopoly for years. For the end user, the phones are old, the networks creaky, the contracts long and the cost astronomical.

A mobile contract costs 2-3 times what it would in the UK for less: Caller ID, voicemail etc. all come as standard in the UK, I don't know of any exceptions. Not only that, but a contract locks you in for 2-3 times as long and the phones still cost more.

[napierzaza]

Costa Rica, not as poor as Africa, gets 5$ a month for cell with infinite data.

[markbernard]

Metering just stifles innovation and lets the big ISPs make more money than they need to. It is a cash grab, plain and simple. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110126/03531712831/metere...

[napierzaza]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Bell hasn't upgraded its service, just the price. It's been pretending it's the users fault that things are slow but it keeps putting more users on the same network. They have no incentive to improve service, especially if the government agrees they can charge whatever they want.

[fluidcruft]

"we are incentivized"

Nice use of passive voice.