Unfortunately when it comes to "competition" in the wireless world, even
though there are multiple providers, the consumer will always be gouged
given the attitude of today's providers to just follow what the other does.
In my opinion, kind of a in the public eye form of collusion. So there will
never be a true competition based market in the wireless given the current
players.
There should be certifications for measurement is that is what my bill is
going to be based on as a consumer. My power meter, gas meter, water meter,
etc. get replaced every so often for calibration and the particular utility
will come out and swap or test on site if I think there is an issue.
Unfortunately, providers like Comcast, yes, I know they aren't wireless, but
their usage meter is a joke and a proprietary based joke at that. I do not
think I have ever seen anyone from Comcast willing to describe exactly how
their meter works and what is and is not counted towards usage. I am not a
wireless expert, but my guess is that it would be even more difficult to
accurately track usage on wireless given the portable nature.
(In my area, luckily, my landline ISP doesn't charge or have caps either.
But my wireless carrier has caps. And given the data hungry phones these
days in which a lot of the data cannot be controlled by the user, then I
certainly want the technical details of the usage calculation open to me for
review.)
Robert Webb
On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 10:46:29 -0600 (CST)
Mike Hammett <na...@ics-il.net> wrote:
The cost to the provider is irrelevant to the consumer. Cost to the
consumer is all the consumer should be concerned with. Competition,
industry and media would serve as the barometer to sensible or
ridiculous pricing.
There are a myriad of ways to measure usage. I'm not sure there are
any certifications for any other billing relating to the Internet, so
why start now?
(My ISP doesn't charge for usage and I don't intend to until the
industry makes that shift. I'm just debating this side.)
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest Internet Exchange
http://www.midwest-ix.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Webb" <rw...@ropeguru.com>
To: "Mike Hammett" <na...@ics-il.net>
Cc: "North American Network Operators' Group" <nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2016 10:37:23 AM
Subject: Re: Binge On! - get your umbrellas out, stuff's hitting the
fan.
The normal consumer has no way to correlate what the "real" cost is
as the
providers keep their "costs" for bandwidth, transit, etc.
proprietary
secrets and always lie to the consumer and muddy the picture of what
the ISP
actually pays for regarding bits!
Additionally, until there can be proper tools that are "certified"
for
measuring usage, then usage based billing will never be viable.
Robert Webb
On Sat, 9 Jan 2016 10:11:29 -0600 (CST)
Mike Hammett <na...@ics-il.net> wrote:
My point on usage based billing isn't meant to stifle anything, but
to provide equitable service to everyone at a fair price. $10/gig
certainly isn't a fair price for almost any network. People pay
variable rates for water, electricity, gas, food, etc., etc.
Is it necessarily a bad thing if people stop to think about what
their usage costs?
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
