George Bonser wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Wheeler [mailto:j...@inconcepts.biz]
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 1:22 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Dave Temkin <dav...@gmail.com> wrote:
I do. And yes, they are happy to "fuck with a billion dollar a month
revenue stream" (that happens to be low margin) in order to set a
precedent
so that when traffic is 60Tbit instead of 6Tbit, across the *same*
customer
Turn the question around. What would any provider think if a city said "sure, you can have
access to our residents' eyeballs. It will cost you $5 per subscriber per month". Would
Comcast or anyone go for that? That is a real question, by the way. For all I know some
municipality might already do that. But say one with something between 100,000 and 1,000,000
potential subscribers did that. Would any of the providers think that is "fair"?
Particularly *after* the provider is already providing services to those subscribers and then has
the rules changed on them after they already have contracts in place with the subscribers?
It just seems to me to be an evil Pandora's box that once opened, there is no
potential end to. What if several cities ganged up and together decided to
charge a last mile provider access to eyeballs?
Better in my opinion to let the end user pay for what they use. It doesn't have to be
strictly metered per meg but can be put into tiers (as most providers already do anyway).
Sort of like "smart meters" they are doing with electricity. People will
modify their usage according to what they can afford. Pricing bandwidth according to
basic principles of supply and demand would probably work better. Those that use more
would pay more, those that use less would pay less.
These are exactly what Franchise Agreements are for. Yes, cities charge
MSOs and LECs for access all the time.
-Dave
