Broadband Tiering Based On Intended Use?

from the interesting... dept

While the US broadband market hasn't become all that competitive, over in the UK the price war seems to escalate every day. The main thing UK broadband providers have been doing is offering cheaper and cheaper introductory tiers. The tiers are usually limited by speed or the amount you can download (though, some have experimented with timed tiers: download all you want at night, but during the day you're limited). Now, however, it looks like BT may be moving beyond the focus on broadband numbers for their tiers and are now trying to segment by usage style. That is, instead of offering a low-speed, low-bandwidth trial where the emphasis is placed on the numbers, they're going to have "packages" based on usage. For example, you can sign up for their basic package and then add the "video streaming" or "online gaming" package which would offer you separate features, speeds and limits. It's an interesting way of both segmenting their customers without necessarily making it seem like traditional tiers. In the end, it's really more of a marketing move than anything else, but it may make end-users more comfortable with the tiers they're using.