reclassifying internet service as a utility

I'm ok with this. We're at a point to where we're going to get screwed one way or another. The Internet isn't what is used to be. You're either going to pay more for certain services or get throttled, or you're going to have to go with the utility. The way it is now won't last much longer. Something is going to happen - either one of those two things. The third option - leave it alone and let it stay open like it is with little regulation - isn't going to happen. We'd all like it to, and it'd be the best solution. But, it's just the option that's on the table for the big guys. This seems like the better option of the first two, though. :/ There is money to be had, and those in charge of the country are looking at that money. They'll buy what they want. All the users be damned.
 
In my opinion usage based pricing has been a long time coming, and is a likely result of reclassifying ISPs as utilities.

I'm actually perfectly fine with that, users who use more bandwidth should pay for that bandwidth, similar to electricity and water. I believe it will provide a a great incentive for ISPs to undertake network upgrades. If they are charging based on usage, then they have an incentive to upgrade the network to allow more usage as efficiently as possible.

It will also spur application developers to make better use of bandwidth either via compression, caching, and better use of streaming (instead of everything all the time from the 'cloud').
 
Want the USA to have the best Internet infrastructure in the world, here's how:
  • Classify all ISPs as a utility.
  • Set a maximum profit margin allowed at 20% of gross revenue.
  • Allow owned (no leasing) investments in infrastructure to to be counted as revenue, allowing higher effective profit margins for seven fiscal years if the ISP invests in infrastructure, meaning they'd be allowed to recover 140% of investment over seven years.
This would limit ISPs in profit margin, however if they invest in their network then they are allowed to legally have higher overall profits over a long term where they end up ahead compared to not upgrading.
 
devman said:
In my opinion usage based pricing has been a long time coming, and is a likely result of reclassifying ISPs as utilities.

I'm actually perfectly fine with that, users who use more bandwidth should pay for that bandwidth, similar to electricity and water. I believe it will provide a a great incentive for ISPs to undertake network upgrades. If they are charging based on usage, then they have an incentive to upgrade the network to allow more usage as efficiently as possible.

It will also spur application developers to make better use of bandwidth either via compression, caching, and better use of streaming (instead of everything all the time from the 'cloud').
Click to expand...

I completely disagree.

In the case of traditional utilities, something is actually "made" electricity, water, etc. and then distributed. So usage based billing makes sense.

In the case of the internet, we aren't making "bits"; there isn't a finite amount of them.

The "last mile" connections from ISP's to customers for the most part are already paid for with subsidies from the taxpayers.

In the case of DSL or the like, the copper pairs have been in the ground for a long while; paid for a LONG time ago (by the taxpayer).

Classify the ISP as a utility so you can regulate pricing and encourage competition...Fine.

Start charging for usage, I'm not ok with that. (50GB downloads of games come to mind) especially with physical media on the downslide this wouldn't make sense.
 
mmettin said:
I completely disagree.

In the case of traditional utilities, something is actually "made" electricity, water, etc. and then distributed. So usage based billing makes sense.

In the case of the internet, we aren't making "bits"; there isn't a finite amount of them.

The "last mile" connections from ISP's to customers for the most part are already paid for with subsidies from the taxpayers.

In the case of DSL or the like, the copper pairs have been in the ground for a long while; paid for a LONG time ago (by the taxpayer).

Classify the ISP as a utility so you can regulate pricing and encourage competition...Fine.

Start charging for usage, I'm not ok with that. (50GB downloads of games come to mind) especially with physical media on the downslide this wouldn't make sense.
Click to expand...

Sir, I disagree with you. In the case of electricity and water, energy is put into a system to push electrons and water through an infrastructure. In the internet infrastructure the same rules apply. A network must have an input source of power and the given infrastructure dictates its efficiency and capacity.

Bits may not be created, but neither are electrons or water molecules. They are simply pushed through the pipes for a fee. The latter usually based on consumption.

In my opinion, it makes sense to think of the internet as a utility. As a professional who works in the broadband industry I know reclassification makes sense. It's my job to embrace sensible decision making and realize this industry will never stand still. Nor should it.
 
mmettin said:
I completely disagree.

...

Start charging for usage, I'm not ok with that. (50GB downloads of games come to mind) especially with physical media on the downslide this wouldn't make sense.
Click to expand...

The fact that my power company charges me per KWh doesn't stop me from using it for fun purposes (like running my servers or computers). My ISP charging me for bandwidth won't stop me from using Steam either. If anything there maybe price breaks at higher consumption for heavy users, again similar to power, or there may be peak and non peak demand rates.

In addition to the things I mentioned in my previous post it will also provide incentives for people to give a damn about their computers being botnet zombies and launching DDOS attacks at full bandwidth.
 
One major thing I'd like to see come from this is real competition. The ability for companies to lease other company's infrastructure into the house would be HUGE.

Then I would, tentatively, be amenable to metered pricing. Ultimately, however, I do agree; network infrastructure should be treated as a utility.
 
devman said:
In my opinion usage based pricing has been a long time coming, and is a likely result of reclassifying ISPs as utilities.

I'm actually perfectly fine with that, users who use more bandwidth should pay for that bandwidth, similar to electricity and water. I believe it will provide a a great incentive for ISPs to undertake network upgrades. If they are charging based on usage, then they have an incentive to upgrade the network to allow more usage as efficiently as possible.

It will also spur application developers to make better use of bandwidth either via compression, caching, and better use of streaming (instead of everything all the time from the 'cloud').
Click to expand...

what? what does one have to do with the other? telephone service is a utility and I don't know anyone that pays for that by minute (short of long distance)

electricity and water cost money to produce... bandwidth and telephone lines just cost money to maintain, no "usage" cost to speak of
 
Are there really people out there who want Internet billed the same way as Electricity?

$1000 PG&E bills are fun, can't wait to get one from our ISP also.
 
FLECOM said:
what? what does one have to do with the other? telephone service is a utility and I don't know anyone that pays for that by minute (short of long distance)

electricity and water cost money to produce... bandwidth and telephone lines just cost money to maintain, no "usage" cost to speak of
Click to expand...

I disagree. There are always usage costs, it is just a matter of if they are worth metering and billing for. Bandwidth is worth metering in a lot of contexts, the end-user service will simply be a new context for that, and that is ok. People who cause demand for bandwidth and higher costs for the ISP should pay more than people who don't. I'd rather have, clear as day on my bill, that then be have that amount priced in to all the services I buy from my ISP.

GotNoRice said:
Are there really people out there who want Internet billed the same way as Electricity?

$1000 PG&E bills are fun, can't wait to get one from our ISP also.
Click to expand...

Metered vs. unmetered is just a billing method, I don't see why bandwidth would suddenly cost $1000. Needless to say my bill with my local telecom for internet access has no problem going up significantly every two years anyway with unmetered plan, and I can't do anything about it. At least with a metered plan I could "use less" or plan for off-peak rates.

Metered provides all the correct market incentives to all the actors. Users are encouraged to only use what they are willing to pay for (including making sure they are not DDOS zombies). ISP are encouraged to upgrade to allow more usage. People who don't use Netflix, Bittorrent, Steam are not subsidizing people who do.
 
Metering for use of bandwidth is silly on a wired connection. The isp's network is never the bottleneck and the isp is not billed for per bit useage to other networks. Peering is an agreement between backbone providers, often times not paid for, and again isn't billed on a per bit basis if it is paid. At that point it would be billed by interconnect speed.

Charging for speed tiers on the other hand makes sense. As an isp provides you a bigger pipe they have to upgrade their interconnects, which may cost money up front or per month, but not billed by useage.

As a consumer I pay for the pipe from my house to the edge of my isp's network. Data over that network does not cost any more if I use 1MB per month or 100TB of data. You can't even argue power useage anymore, most carrier grade switches and routers only have a 20% difference in power useage from idle to full load. Dealing with those routers every day for entire cities, I can tell you I've never seen useage over 40% and more than 8% additional power load over idle. Long story short, power is a fixed cost.

THERE IS NO COST PER BIT TO THE ISP, PERIOD.

The cost of upgrading internal networks and interconnects should be rolled into the monthly bill, as they are planned upgrades. Upgrades are planned 2-5 years out and the price is figured out then and there so it isn't an unexpected cost.

The bill per bit argument is the same as the old long distance argument. Back in the day when you had toll cables to connect cities long distance cost money. Every phone call between area codes cost additional money because it had to pass over a special high cost high maintenance cable. Now days every phone call passes over low cost low maintenance fiber that doesn't have any additional cost based on useage. Why do you think long distance is unlimited now? It's because the cost is fixed and the upgrades are planned. Oh yeah, and the interconnects are regulated by the fcc so their can't be any prioritization.

Sounds like regulation of isp interconnects and parts of the internal network to eliminate priortization needs to be implimented. Possibly the capacity of the network based on subscriber number also.
 
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Might be a good thing IF the ISPs are forced to treat all data equally. Just as my electric company doesn't care if I use the power for light bulbs, computers, welding or performing weird experiments on the neighbor's cat, the ISP's shouldn't care if I use data packets for gaming, downloading artistic pictures, checking email or watching videos of people performing weird electrical experiments on cats.

Might even encourage the folks providing media via streaming to provide a DVR type system so the media files could be downloaded during off peak times and watched later.

<no actual cats were harmed in the production of this posting>
 
Utility equals govt control... good luck with that...

No one here considers that customers should drive the market with our dollars.

Once the government has it .... it is ruined completely.
 
I say if it hurts the ISPs then good... we have to pay $6000/month to get a 500mbit fiber at our office yet google can do 1gb for less than I pay comcast? screw the ISPs
 
tangoseal said:
Utility equals govt control... good luck with that...

No one here considers that customers should drive the market with our dollars.
Click to expand...
And how would that work? How many choices do you have in your area? I have two; bad and worse ( comcast and AT&T ).

I hate the entire idea of government control, but it makes sense in some limited circumstances. Phone service, for example. Water, gas, garbage, sewer are others. The lesser of two evils, as it were.

At least by rating ISPs as common carriers, we would get ACTUAL choice. Companies would need to actually compete for customers.
 
If it will be a utility, then when can I make my own? I have a well, water is pumped on my property. I have a propane tank that I have filled.

Can I have internet to pump? :p
 
FLECOM said:
yep, the real problem is lack of competition.. everywhere google has announced they are going to be installing google fiber all of a sudden got very competitive rates

everywhere else the attitude is "well you are going to pay for our shit service and like it, because where are you going to go?"
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Yes which is all well and fine in areas where ISPs want to be. What about all of the other areas they don't? Google can cherry pick any area that will bend over for them to get their service. The only areas that are going to be competition are ones that are desirable. (IE, have money, high density) If you have a more rural area with less income you'll have a much harder time convincing an ISP to offer service. That's the main driving point behind a utility is that it's no longer a if you want to provide service, it's a you must provide service if someone is in your area. I know someone not more than 2 miles from me who's particular road is a ISP dead zone. They can't get any options for HSI and yet there is service North, South, East, and West of them. They can get both phone and power because it is regulated and required for those companies to offer service. There are many cases where someone is just one or two houses away from someone with HSI and yet they can't get it because it would require a plant redesign and that would be too costly for them to bother, even if it meant they could potentially get more service from other customers in the future.
 
bman212121 said:
Yes which is all well and fine in areas where ISPs want to be. What about all of the other areas they don't? Google can cherry pick any area that will bend over for them to get their service. The only areas that are going to be competition are ones that are desirable. (IE, have money, high density) If you have a more rural area with less income you'll have a much harder time convincing an ISP to offer service. That's the main driving point behind a utility is that it's no longer a if you want to provide service, it's a you must provide service if someone is in your area. I know someone not more than 2 miles from me who's particular road is a ISP dead zone. They can't get any options for HSI and yet there is service North, South, East, and West of them. They can get both phone and power because it is regulated and required for those companies to offer service. There are many cases where someone is just one or two houses away from someone with HSI and yet they can't get it because it would require a plant redesign and that would be too costly for them to bother, even if it meant they could potentially get more service from other customers in the future.
Click to expand...

Bullshit.

Where there is a need, there is someone willing to make money off of that need.

When I was growing up in podunk, Idaho and cell phones were invented (yes, I know I'm dating myself... ;) ), people were worried that the one company that offered cell phone service was going to keep increasing it's rates. People were so freaked out, they weren't buying cell phones! Then another company moved in and another and another until there were so many options that prices were kept low.

Government regulation does NOTHING for us end-users, it only allows for graft between the federal and local governments and their buddies in the ISPs.

NO NO NO NO to internet as a utility, it will be the end of what we deem today as the internet.
 
The only way charging per bit makes sense to me is if they open the tubes up and end speed tiers. You pay for what you use and what you use comes to you at the same speed as everyone else.
 
mavrocket said:
No no no no no!

Everyone needs to realize what classifying the internet as a utility really does and can (and will) cause.

Please please please read this before thinking Net Nuetrality is a good idea!

http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/12/net-neutrality-is-a-lousy-idea
Click to expand...

That article was unconvincing. There are a lot of places currently where the ISPs are not subject to market forces. The rest of the article raises the regulation boogieman about "Look, regulation in this unrelated industry screwed up, so it will screw up this industry too."

Then it goes on to talk about how greater regulation will make it easier for the government to spy on us, as if ISPs are not already in bed with the government.

I will say that the concerns about some title II requirements ISPs would be subject too have merit, but this is a problem of the ISPs own making. If they hadn't abused their market position title II wouldn't be on the table. No one was talking about it until they started being dicks.

FLECOM said:
yep, the real problem is lack of competition.. everywhere google has announced they are going to be installing google fiber all of a sudden got very competitive rates

everywhere else the attitude is "well you are going to pay for our shit service and like it, because where are you going to go?"
Click to expand...

Agreed 100%. Separating, infrastructure owners from ISPs would be the best way to do this. Same thing that happened back in the DSL days when Telcoms were required to grant access to competitors to offer internet services.
 
mavrocket said:
Bullshit.

Where there is a need, there is someone willing to make money off of that need.

When I was growing up in podunk, Idaho and cell phones were invented (yes, I know I'm dating myself... ;) ), people were worried that the one company that offered cell phone service was going to keep increasing it's rates. People were so freaked out, they weren't buying cell phones! Then another company moved in and another and another until there were so many options that prices were kept low.

Government regulation does NOTHING for us end-users, it only allows for graft between the federal and local governments and their buddies in the ISPs.

NO NO NO NO to internet as a utility, it will be the end of what we deem today as the internet.
Click to expand...

Which is kind of a different scenario than what I'm referring to. If someone were offering them service then it was already deemed profitable. What about the people who were outside of the service area and didn't get cell phone coverage? The people who happened to be in a low area, or surrounded by trees and couldn't get a signal? I'd guess those people still didn't have service when the other companies came in because they didn't have to bother putting a tower in place so those people could get coverage. With cell phones it's easier to say well just go to a place where you can get signal, but with say power you can't just move your house so it's near a power line. Same kind of scenario comes up right now if your house is more a certain number of feet from the road. You will be able to power to your house but the ISP can refuse to give you internet because you're too far from the road even though the service travels past your residence. It's not always a case of if someone provides service in the area but they can exclude people at will since they are unregulated and don't have to comply with regulations.

Maybe they don't need to be classified as a utility to accomplish that goal, but there still needs to be something in place that allows a person to request that they be serviced. I know dozens of people where there is some type of service in the area, but they can't get it because of x reason. Yet all of them have access to landlines and power.
 
mavrocket said:
NO NO NO NO to internet as a utility, it will be the end of what we deem today as the internet.
Click to expand...

I would love to hear why... when I got DSL like 10 years ago I was paying $40/month for 1.5Mbits... today I am paying $40/month for 3Mbits... after a decade of deregulation and technical advancements... give me a break... anything that is bad for ATT will be good for us
 
Infrastructure providers (data road builders) need to be treated differently than data providers.

Those that invest in physical transport infrastructure should be entitled to exclusivity for a limited period 24-36 months. Then they should get regulated to enforce allowing competitors to use those transports.

Ex. Verizon deploys fiber to a neighborhood. Verizon gets exclusive access to that fiber for 24-36 months, after which other data providers (for example Covad) could provide service over those fiber lines at a rate no higher than "X".

If verizon provided good service at a reasonable cost...most if not all user's would stay with verizon.
 
Regulation:

I used to be able to have a choice of 6 internet providers.

(7) via DSL starting at $20 per month
(1) via cable Entry price was $29.99 month to month
(1) via satellite


Deregulation

Now I have:
(2) via DSL (prices are 200-500% higher than what they were 10 years ago)
(1) via cable Entry price is $59.99 month to month but speed is 30% faster than 10 years ago
(0) FIOS not available
(1) via satellite




My suggested version of regulation should result in 5 years with

(3-8) via DSL with prices starting at 19.99
(1-3) via Cable with prices starting at 29.99 per month
(1-3) via Fios with prices starting at 29.99 per month
(1-2) via satellite ($)
 
Mackintire said:
Regulation:

I used to be able to have a choice of 6 internet providers.

(7) via DSL starting at $20 per month
(1) via cable Entry price was $29.99 month to month
(1) via satellite


Deregulation

Now I have:
(2) via DSL (prices are 200-500% higher than what they were 10 years ago)
(1) via cable Entry price is $59.99 month to month but speed is 30% faster than 10 years ago
(0) FIOS not available
(1) via satellite




My suggested version of regulation should result in 5 years with

(3-8) via DSL with prices starting at 19.99
(1-3) via Cable with prices starting at 29.99 per month
(1-3) via Fios with prices starting at 29.99 per month
(1-2) via satellite ($)
Click to expand...

Can you describe what regulation was in place and then removed that led to the higher rates?
 
Well every single thing the government has ever touched has completely been used for something bad to the people and good for the vested interest in someone getting rich and powerful. Always was and always will be. There are too many people voting for net neutrality than no, there are too many people wanting ISP as a utility service, than not... you are going to get what you want but once you get it chances are you will wish you could get rid of it.
 
The old regulation forced all ISPs that were telephone companies to allow competitors to use their (phone lines) aka connections to allow customers to connect to them. Since the tech was soon expensive to deploy there were few if any secondary carriers on cable that did not also own the lines.

The maximum price the companies could resell their lines for was regulated.

The problem was there was no initiative to build out to new locations since you couldn t recover the costs before a competitor offered lower prices on your lines.

So there was competition where connections were available but little initiative to build faster networks or into new locations.


Now we have monopolies. One (fiber optic) provided, One cable, One 4G, One-two DSL if you're lucky.

But some areas have 1 choice and no competition.


Since Comcast swapped wireless spectrum with verizon in exchange of Verizon holding off their fios expansion for a (unknown) period of time. There is not incentive to compete in many areas now.

Other things have changed. When we have regulation broadband penetration was 20-30% of the households in the US. I think its more like 85% more.


When regulation was lifted, no one could become an ISP and offer services unless you used DSL and ONLY if you negotiated less obscene rates with the telco companies.

No speeds faster than 6Mbps were/are available.

If you want something faster your choice is CABLE or FIOS, and one choice of each, that's it.




If regulation was put back into place you'd be able to choose your data supplier and someone else....verizon, comcast, roadrunner, timewarrener would provide the conduit.

But without an incentive to build, the infrastructure builders aren't going to expand and they will lobby (rightly so) until the cows come home to get their fair share.

At the moment, they don't share at all.

But the type of regulation we had previously swings the pendilum too far the opposite way to be sustainable long term.
 
My fear with classifying them as an utility is that they may actually charge like an utility, as in, based on how many GB you use. So instead of paying $120/mo for your service and no cap, it will be $120/mo delivery fee + usage.

But it seems no matter what we lose, so classifying as utility is probably still the best bet than the slow lanes.

One issue is the lack of competition. The big ISPs just lobby governments to ensure competition is not allowed. This needs to stop. In fact lobbying as a whole needs to stop, and needs to be illegal, but sadly never going to happen.
 
Bill by bit might not exactly occur that way.

Bill by speed bracket and allocation is more likely.

50Mbps with a 500GB limit. Go over the limit and you're downgraded to 5Mbps for the remainder of the billing period. Or pay more and get raised to a 750GB limit for $20 more a month....etc

The problem is last time anyone looked the ISPs wanted to cap at 200-250GB for a normal user.

If you watch 3 hours of HD netflix a day you can easily get to 350GB of data.

Instead we have the 95th percental rule. The ISPs send disconnect warning letters to the top 5% consumers each month in a specified area.

Consumers also need to be able to visibly see how much they have used, how much is left and if they will make it until the end of the billing cycle based on the current rate of consumption.

ISPs know that this point that shutting off users connectivity results in lawsuits, bad publicity and doesn't serve the concept of making more money. (kind of self defeating)
 
Red Squirrel said:
My fear with classifying them as an utility is that they may actually charge like an utility, as in, based on how many GB you use. So instead of paying $120/mo for your service and no cap, it will be $120/mo delivery fee + usage.

But it seems no matter what we lose, so classifying as utility is probably still the best bet than the slow lanes.

One issue is the lack of competition. The big ISPs just lobby governments to ensure competition is not allowed. This needs to stop. In fact lobbying as a whole needs to stop, and needs to be illegal, but sadly never going to happen.
Click to expand...

again I hear this, telephone is a utility and it's not billed by usage
 
Still is in some places.

Local phone access is a flat rate.

Long distance either 14 10 or 8 cents a minute <---- looks like usage to me.



My parents are still being billed at 10 cents a minute since they refuse to buy a cell phone or move to a now normal one rate plan. Granted their phone bill is something like $17 a month.
 
devman said:
In my opinion usage based pricing has been a long time coming, and is a likely result of reclassifying ISPs as utilities.

I'm actually perfectly fine with that, users who use more bandwidth should pay for that bandwidth, similar to electricity and water. I believe it will provide a a great incentive for ISPs to undertake network upgrades. If they are charging based on usage, then they have an incentive to upgrade the network to allow more usage as efficiently as possible.

It will also spur application developers to make better use of bandwidth either via compression, caching, and better use of streaming (instead of everything all the time from the 'cloud').
Click to expand...

I agree and have posted this many time. But this is a politically based decision and the hate for metered use is astronomical on most internet forums. I would like to see a system like phones where you pay $/GB and there are price breaks if you use the service on off times like late at night. IMO a $9.99 service and billing fee followed by 25 cents / GB or lower would be acceptable with the price dropping by half or so on in the middle of the night.
 
The internet network should be treated like a LAN. You pay for the equipment once and there should not be a cost to how much you use it. If I go 10g throughout my whole house once I paid for the equipment it does not cost me more to run it at full capacity than if it's idle. Ex: Tier 1 providers should not charge ISPs per usage, they should charge a flat rate based on the size of the pipe. If infrastructure is in place and paid for, it does not actually cost the owners more if it's being used more. The equipment is running regardless. I suppose you can argue that if it's running harder it uses a bit more power but that's probably pretty negligible.

Usage based pricing would SUCK. Unlike electricity or gas it's pretty hard to constantly limit usage. Would suck if I'd have to put a price tag on every single piece of data that I transfer.

Sadly, I can see it happen regardless, it "makes sense" from an utility point of view. But I rather have slow unlimited internet than limited fast internet.
 
Red Squirrel said:
...Ex: Tier 1 providers should not charge ISPs per usage, they should charge a flat rate based on the size of the pipe. If infrastructure is in place and paid for, it does not actually cost the owners more if it's being used more. The equipment is running regardless. I suppose you can argue that if it's running harder it uses a bit more power but that's probably pretty negligible. ...
Click to expand...
Amusingly, AT&T and Verizon both made pretty much this same argument with Netflix. Their entire argument was that Netflix wanted them to upgrade their connections to Netflix and for the ISPs to pay the whole cost of doing so under a specious "peering" principle.

Kinda fully that the whole Net Neutrality issue has less to do with greedy ISPs than is does web service providers expecting a free ride.
 
Red Squirrel said:
The internet network should be treated like a LAN. You pay for the equipment once and there should not be a cost to how much you use it. If I go 10g throughout my whole house once I paid for the equipment it does not cost me more to run it at full capacity than if it's idle. Ex: Tier 1 providers should not charge ISPs per usage, they should charge a flat rate based on the size of the pipe. If infrastructure is in place and paid for, it does not actually cost the owners more if it's being used more. The equipment is running regardless. I suppose you can argue that if it's running harder it uses a bit more power but that's probably pretty negligible.

Usage based pricing would SUCK. Unlike electricity or gas it's pretty hard to constantly limit usage. Would suck if I'd have to put a price tag on every single piece of data that I transfer.

Sadly, I can see it happen regardless, it "makes sense" from an utility point of view. But I rather have slow unlimited internet than limited fast internet.
Click to expand...

As an ISP, I can tell you that usage based billing makes sense in a "I want to bleed as much cash from my customers as possible" point of view.There are no costs associated with "generating bits" like there is with gas, water, and electricity. It doesn't cost me any more if a user downloads 50GB in one month instead of 10GB. Since theres no cost to me, I can just make the numbers up. It's free money!

In a perfect world, usage based billing would help with congestion, but humans are not perfect. If you give them a 10GB cap, they aren't going to carefully spread that out over the month. They're going to do whatever they want, hit the cap in 15 days, and then bitch about the overage charges for the rest of the month (or complain about the reduced speeds).

To me it makes more sense to sell speed tiers with differing oversell rates to handle congestion. If my network is "congested", I can't fix that by only charging my customers more money (unless I charge so much that half of them terminate their service). The fix is to increase capacity. The big ISPs don't want to increase capacity, because that costs money. They're perfectly happy to keep on using their ancient, federally subsidized, equipment forever. I mean, what are their customer's going to do, move to a competitor? haha.
 
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