If You're Going To Meter Broadband, Shouldn't You At Least Make Sure The Meters Work?
from the it's-the-little-things dept
One of the things that's left out of the discussion about all these attempts to move to "metered billing" for broadband is the massive overhead increases it will put on broadband providers. In the past, with straight flat-rate plans, there wasn't much to monitor or adjust by the company (and fewer customer disputes over how much was used). But, as soon as you add in the meters, all that goes out the window -- and I'd bet the expense greatly outweighs any supposed "benefit" to the cable company.Take, for example, Canadian cable provider Cogeco, who apparently has started offering metered billing, but whose "meters" apparently don't work. Customers are reporting very inaccurate readings on the tool provided by Cogeco for customers to watch their own bandwidth, and they're receiving usage emails from the company that don't match up with what the online tool says at all. So, now Cogeco's going to have a bunch of folks complaining, and will need to spend more time fixing its meter tool. Good decision, huh?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: metered broadband, tools
Companies: cogeco
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
actually good for virus detection
I would wonder about the methodology for meters that dont work, but people arent always particularly bright about putting things in place the first time around.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: actually good for virus detection
Don't know if anyone else does this or not. Just had it happen to a business customer recently who uses Qwest for their internet connectiion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Coming Soon to a neighborhood near you
Just like going to the bathroom during commercials is stealing television
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Metering blows chunks.
I'm certainly not going to pay for an expensive plan just because Norton, Windows, or Adobe want to download megs of files for update packages.
And I, for one, will challenge these plans based on my situation. No reason why anyone should have to worry about "low cost" plans only to find out they went over due to updates.
Vista's SP2 was 350MB alone!
BrightHouse, I triple dog dare you to install metered pricing on my broadband.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Metering blows chunks.
Vista's SP2 was 350MB alone!
I downloaded the latest patch for a game you may have heard of called World in Conflict. Yea, that patch file download was 971MB.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Metering blows chunks.
Yeah, I know what you mean. As a trucker, I get screwed with metered fuel.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Irony?
Not to give anyone ideas, but if I were designing those online tools, there may be a little extra "bloat" attached to beef up the profits. Maybe even a real-time stream of how much you have used/using.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It happens even with the biggest ISP in Australia
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Why Don't They Just Come To All Our Homes,Turn Us
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wait a minute...
Maybe they should just start selling us minutes of connection time. Yeah, there yah go. 500 minutes of cable modem access time a month!
And maybe they could use some special software to connect.
Oh, they could mass market the software with CD's mailed out to anyone and everyone!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm from Australia...
However, I would just like to point out that metering software does actually work (for the most part). Stupid ISP's like Telstra screw up their metering big time (and everything else), and yet they happen to be the monopoly in our country. If you choose another ISP, I can guaruntee you that the metering would work. It all just depends on who you're with.
I really want to stress that you American's should not associate Telstra with our country - their standards are so low, and alot of us tech head's hate the company. It's just that everyone else is so stupid that they pay them money because they don't know any better.
My 2c
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cogeco
Teksavvy knows how to treat their customers. Not only do they have great customer service, they are cheaper than Cogeco too. Teksavvy's got 2 plans: 200GB, and for $10 more you can get unlimited.
Why anyone would want to go with Cogeco over Teksavvy is beyond me, but I'm guessing the majority either don't know or prefer one bill for internet and cable tv.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Cogeco
We had Cogeco at work and it was the most unreliable service I've ever had. The biggest problem is that there is no other cable provider in this area at all. There is *no* competition.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Cogeco
Comcast only has one flat cap (250 gig/ up and down combined) and they have different speed tiers. 6mbs down and 16mbs down. Unless your a business and I think its like 20 or 25mbs down.
Hopefully they will stick with these plans because they seem to be working and I usually see speeds around the 10 to 15mbs down most of the time anyway.
Its ashame to see how backwards these companies are thinking in efforts to drive advancement and user enjoyment (read profit gaining and alienating users)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Another comment from Australia
For metered broadband that isn't atrocious you just need:
- unmetered uploads
- reasonably generous caps (e.g. 100 Gigabytes per month means downloading continuously at 320 kilobits per second to reach the cap, and even then you will only reach it right at the end of the month)
- speed throttling rather than excess data charges
That last point is important because it means your worst case scenario is a few days with a low quality internet connection that at least still lets you check email and do a bit of websurfing, even if it is useless for things like online gaming or streaming (due to the way ISP level throttling is implemented).
So long as the caps are nice and high, metered broadband actually has the advantage of making sure the rules are clear and it eliminates the bandwidth hog problem that appears in the US with unmetered plans that still have a shared oversubscribed uplink to the rest of the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Another comment from Australia
The population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, is among the lowest in the world, although a great proportion of the population lives along the temperate south-eastern coastline - Wikipedia
Perhaps I'm missing your point, but it isn't really like you guys spread out too much there... much of the area is undeveloped so it seems.
"For metered broadband that isn't atrocious..."
Americans are usually really concerned about our freedoms. It's always been really important to us. I'm not up on the theory and reasoning behind metering/nonmetering but limiting the consumer to only playing games on certain days when the teleco says I can is not only not what I want but definitely regressive in what goods/services are being delivered. That would be like having electric service but you could only have one room on at a time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TOO CHEAP TO METER
I can't wait for the first big company to walk away from the idea because it was costing them more to meter than adding more bandwidth would cost.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: TOO CHEAP TO METER
Umm, every city I've ever lived in has had metered water. Could you perhaps cite some US cities that have flat-rate water service?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Monopoly
Unfortunately, DSL isn't a good option either in Canada, or at least Southern Ontario, with Bell throttling and shaping traffic for all DSL providers.
Canada's ISP options are pathetically bad, most area's have monopolies, traffic shaping is out of control, and prices are sky high. The government is just too stupid, or too far up corporations asses, to actually care about the future of Canada.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Error in your favor...NOT!
and I'll bet in EVERY SINGLE CASE WITHOUT EXCEPTION, this "error" is against the customer. EVERY time, it shows MORE usage by the customer than they used, right?
G.D. greedy scumbag ISP's
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wow!! Really??
320kbits per second! Holy Horseshit Batamn! Thats awesome! Its soooo much like 1997, I cant believe everyone everywhere isnt offering that!
Seriously, you are DEFENDING this shit? They offer, effectively, 320kbps and you hold them up as some kind of paragon of this crap? This isnt progress, this isnt pro-consumer, this isnt good business. Offering speeds that would make satellite look like a viable option is NOT a good thing, sheesh.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Analysis of the exceeding caps is done after the fact or in real-time by their fraud department and the info is not available to CSRs or Comcast customers.
One simple FCC ruling would kill usage caps: "If there is a usage cap (hard or soft), the customer must be able to see their current usage (current up to last 48 hours) via the ISP website or by automated or CSR call to a ISPs customer service telephone center."
ISPs would quickly give up their usage caps rather than face the cost and effort of creating a customer-facing near real-time usage monitoring system.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
They just pass you around from dept to dept when they encounter a customer with a question they dont know how to answer. They dont care they cant do their job as long as they get people to not cancel their service. They just pass you around.
That is just ridiculous they dont make that info available to the broadband customers. I have a 3rd party meter to track my usage but still comcast should be able to tell me what I have used.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bad Meters
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bad Meters
And have you seen those stories on how the gas stations are rigging their pumps/meters too?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Unwanted usage
[ link to this | view in chronology ]