Broadband Providers Pretending Metered Billing Is About Helping The Poor
from the yeah,-right dept
Broadband Reports has a trio of posts pointing out the latest in ridiculousness coming out of the cable broadband industry. It kicks off by pointing out that, despite the claims of the industry, moving to metered and capped broadband is certainly not inevitable. Flat rate broadband has been amazingly profitable for these companies, but they're looking to squeeze even more money out of people. Yet, those on Wall Street who take an incredibly short-term view on how broadband companies make their money are pushing hard to get them to start offering metered billing and broadband caps. And, to top it all off, the cable industry's top lobbyist is trotting out the old ridiculous line that metered billing is really about helping out the poor by offering them more reasonable broadband deals.Except almost none of that is true. While various attempts at putting in place metered broadband usually will include some "low end" offering so that the companies can make these kinds of claims, if you look more closely at those offerings, they are almost universally terrible. They're not designed to "spur adoption by price-sensitive consumers at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder," as the industry claims, but to aggressively upsell people to higher rate plans by making the low end plans as crappy and unusable as possible.
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Filed Under: billing, broadband, business models, metered
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Uncle Sam, Wikileaks wage cyber guerilla war
Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN, Dec 3, 2010, 06.51pm IST
Read more: Uncle Sam, Wikileaks wage cyber guerilla war - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Uncle-Sam-Wikileaks-wage-cyber-guerilla-war/articleshow/ 7036499.cms#ixzz173rTWPSs
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Uncle-Sam-Wikileaks-wage-cy ber-guerilla-war/articleshow/7036499.cms
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Re: Uncle Sam, Wikileaks wage cyber guerilla war
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Limit how much data sheeple have access to and they will chose to download music and movies rather than keep informed.
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The ugly truth
This is something that will be used to FLEECE the poor, not "empower" them.
Companies will play on their ignorance and inability to flee to better options and will end up charging them more for less.
Add it to a long list of soak-the-poor options along with pay day loans and rent to own.
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Re:
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if this happens...
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Typical tactics...
This is exactly what they are doing with the internet. They want to divide the service into as many chunks as they can (in this case, by the MB) and sell that at a basic rate. The cheapest offering will obviously be terrible as Mike predicted and you will be forced to chose the more expensive offering to get acceptable service. All the while, they are getting more money by offering less service. They can do this because they are often one of only two options at best. This needs to change. Prosperity of humanity as a whole is retarded by companies like these because their insatiable pursuit of profit overrules the public good, which used to be the governing core of all corporate charters.
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How unexpected
What better way to insure a steady stream of revenue than to have people watch a movie or two over Netflix or Hulu, right?
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Re: Re:
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Re: How unexpected
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"Ridiculous"
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What this country needs...
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Re: Re:
Anyone hear about Google's decision on their FiOs?
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Re: Re: Uncle Sam, Wikileaks wage cyber guerilla war
You see if one recommends a story the link does not become available to the audience only to the editors of the blog which would then deprive the audience of understanding what the US government is up to.
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Wireless Broadband
We can only hope that competition between wireless service providers is better than the monopolies granted to cable providers. I (naively) think it will be.
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Re: if this happens...
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Re: Re: Re: Uncle Sam, Wikileaks wage cyber guerilla war
Posting it in the comments of an unrelated article takes focus away from the article and takes credibility away from the new story. I haven't even clicked on the link due to it just being posted in a random article by some rude guy.
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Re: Re: if this happens...
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Re: What this country needs...
FCC opens up White spaces
What we actually need is a new player or technology to come along.
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The iPad being given TOPS 2gb as the ceiling use per month is an absolute JOKE and shows how AT&T and others want to continue FORCING people to not use much while ENCOURAGING more to use it
Why? So more can hit the caps and hit penalties
2gb cap....what a freakin joke
I hit that cap almost monthly and I don't watch Netflix, etc....I am FAR from a "heavy user"
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Re: Re: What this country needs...
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It's already in Canada
Then, wireless we have a puny 500meg/month cap for smartphones. Wonder why things like Netflix will never catch on here? Not because of a lack of content but because it costs us more in overage fees than going to the damn store and renting the DVD. And forget streaming content on the iPhone anad Android. Can't do it.
And of course we have the same monopoly/ legacy system here too. If you don't like it there's nowhere else to go. They all charge the same. Absolutely no competition and no Govt' willing to face the issue.
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OHHHHHH canada
ohhhhhhh canada we get UUB and caps
OHHHHHHHH canada im cutting my net next month cause i cant afford it....
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Re: Re:
Umm, why would they? Isn't that what the capitalists claim?
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Re: Re: Re: if this happens...
Not if they choose to offer it too you. How much they pay for it makes no difference in that regard.
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Flat Rate Electricity
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Re: Re: Re: What this country needs...
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Re: Flat Rate Electricity
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Re: What this country needs...
There is no market, anybody trying to build a network will be stopped in its tracks by legislation.
That is why other countries made laws to guarantee line sharing and build their own networks.
It takes a really long time to deploy cables not because of the cost of raw material or the digging but because of the politics of it.
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Re: Re: What this country needs...
We probably can do a wireless network on an entire city those tools already exist but it will not do much good if you can't reach others.
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Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
You can find ways to reduce your internet usage and still enjoy the benefits, too.
You can't produce your own internet access can you?
You can't power your house with internet access, can you?
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Re: Re: Re: if this happens...
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Re: Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
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Broadband
1. When a service is shared, and has only a certain amount of capacity, there will always be, for example, teenagers who get bragging rights by endlessly downloading nonsense, in hopes that they will become "notorious" - the thing that makes violent video games so popular. In that case, the service should increase their service AND at least temporarily cap for fairness.
2. I don't like AT&T, and I know they are not working in the consumer's best interest - but I use AT&T DSL, and it is both cheap and pretty good; and they aren't spamming me to improve the service.
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Re: Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
"You can produce your own energy and reduce your dependency on the utility company"
Creating your own connections to the rest of the world will be a bit difficult though possible.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
Strange, that's just what I was thinking of *your* comment.
You could try to find ways to reduce your internet usage, but that's such a sysyphian task.
Why's that? Your saying so doesn't make it so.
It's easy to use more efficient devices to keep your electricity usage down.
Oh really? If I already have the most efficient devices on the market, how is it so easy to "use more efficient devices"?
You don't have that kind of control over your internet connection. A 1000 MB video is still a 1000 MB video.
I guess you never heard of compression or anything like that. You're sounding more ignorant all the time.
A 1000 MB video is still a 1000 MB video. Anything else is just going without.
Hey, guess what: 1000 Watts is still 1000 Watts, too. Anything else is just going without, huh?
If you're going without such things, why even bother having the internet at all?
If you're going without such things, why even bother having electric power at all?
As I said before, you can find ways to produce your own electricity (i.e. solar, wind, etc),
But, I can't produce my own power grid, now can I?
but you cannot produce your own internet access.
But I can very well produce my own network access.
That would require you to create your own internet.
Easily done.
Really, you seem to have no idea what you're talking about.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
Then you need to be a patriot and start producing your own energy and contribute to the distribute grid which is better than the "smart grid" proposal.
http://sustainabledesignupdate.com/2007/08/honda-co-generation-for-homes/
That one uses gas but you can retrofit it to use hydrogen or syngas from organic material gasification.
Instead of paying others to throw out your garden clippings, food leftovers and other things that would have gone to the incineration anyways you use it to produce your own energy, which saves you money to spend on other things, but hey the choice is yours, you can continue to spend thousands of dollars in utility bills just don't come crying when katrina like events strike you or you get browned out, you choose to let your faith on the hands of others remember that when it happens.
Yes you can!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
Yes you can!
http://sustainabledesignupdate.com/2007/08/honda-co-generation-for-homes/
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Flat Rate Electricity
Yes you can!
I can produce my own power on the grid, but you need to explain just how I am supposed to produce my own power grid.
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