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by halfasleep
4567 days ago
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> The only reason telcos talk about heavy users is that they want to engage in price discrimination and they know it confuses people who are used to dealing with commodities whose dominant cost is the unit cost rather than ones whose dominant cost is the fixed cost of building a distribution system. I'd say it's reasonable to charge heavy users more. Firstly, the cost is not totally fixed for the ISP, higher usage involves investment in their own infrastructure (routers, transit etc.). Secondly, it's arguable that heavy users derive greater utility from the service so won't object to higher prices. |
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You want to find out how small a portion of the total cost that actually is? Require the ILECs to lease the physical wire from the customer premises to the central office and space in the central office for the lessee's terminating equipment, prohibit the last mile provider from sharing ownership with a backhaul provider and then have the likes of Level 3 and Verizon compete with each other to sell connectivity from your local central office to the wider internet.
> Secondly, it's arguable that heavy users derive greater utility from the service so won't object to higher prices.
Also known as price discrimination.