"Time Warner Cable Inc said on
Wednesday it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet
subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than a flat
fee, the standard industry practice." (Full article here.)
Imagine that… paying for what you use instead of being able to consume and consume and consume without cost consequences.
Water, roads, health care. What else can we apply this model to? Think of all these other industries where people who use very little pay a lot and subsidize those who consume large amounts.
As for the internet pricing… the article states that about 5% of the consumers use over half the internet bandwidth — mainly those downloading large files and playing games online.
So for many of us who do that, our cable bills might actually go down since we would only being paying for what we use instead of subsidizing the appetites of those who think they can use all they want without consequences.
I’m on board Time Warner — sign me up!
“Metered prices may chill innovation in cutting-edge applications because consumers will have a disincentive to use them,” explains Ben Scott of Free Press. “Viewed in the context of our long-term national goals for a world-class broadband infrastructure, telling consumers they must choose between blocking and metered pricing is a worrying development.”
The cable industry is still a highly monopolized industry. Cable TV rates are increasing at four times the rate of inflation. No thanks to the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992.
No offense, but net neutrality advocates and the rest are a little bit zealous — and are just as much rent-seekers as cable companies are “monopolists”. I suspect JJ might be rent-seeking.
What the f*&^% is a “long-term national goal”? Sounds like central planning to me.