re: Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the Masses>It is odd Internet providers are going in the opposite direction of mobile operators...
Are they? Mobile guys look like they might end up with caps too:
"...several operators have now capped usage at 5 GBytes a month. Why? Because the GÇ£tailGÇ¥ of the subscriber load ...is now in the tens of gigabytes a month for some users, or, for more wacky users, even north of 50 GB a month."
re: Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the Massesre: "One last question: how long before TWC starts losing customers to the local Baby Bell who does not currently have a cap?"
If the customers that are defecting are free loaders and intellectual property thieves maybe it's not a big loss to a media conglomerate? Baby Bells will effectively be out of the media distribution business unless they can guarantee things like broadcasting rights. It's really not much different than the evolution of over the air radio and TV where, at the end of the day, rights were enforced and only then did a viable business model find it's equilibrium.
re: Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the MassesComrades, Not sure how mobile data is marketed in the US, but one of the more popular services in the UK is from Vodafone, and they're very clear that there are download limits. Specifically it's 3GB per month for 15 pounds, and 5GB for 25 pounds.
I use this service when I'm on the road and it's pretty good. 3G access is common in the major cities around Europe, so I get 3Mbps or even 7Mbps. This is fine for email and "normal" web browsing.
re: Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the MassesI was not big into cell phones in the late 90s, but I remember it was incredibly expensive to get plans with a reasonable amount of minutes and then it was painfully expensive when you went over. And back then no one thought they would displace a POTS line to the home. Take a look at what competition has done today. Operators are offering more minutes for less, roll over minutes, and now the first unlimited minutes plans are coming out. A lot of people no longer have a POTS line at the house, or it was an after thought in some package deal. Back to my Yahoo analogy, I remember when it was 10M storage limit for about 6 years when suddenly GMAIL trials came along with a much higher limit. Even while it was in limited user beta trials, Yahoo started raising their limits to stay competitive, and now it is 1G plus. Same thing will happen with these caps. The $/G cap will become a differentiator and with mobile operators trying to get a piece of the pie, it will force network upgrades and cap increases.
I know this goes against the grain, but I would rather have a slower speed connection and no cap versus a higher speed and a cap. I supposedly have a 6M download speed, but I am lucky if I hit a 1/2M now because something in the middle or at the far end (such as a "free" slow download vs. paid download service) throttles the connection. Providers need to get away from this nickel and dime airline model and price the service accordingly.
And RJ, as far as illegal downloads go, they are not going to stop. If anything, people will start trying to work out ways of defeating the monitoring software. No matter how hard you try to protect something, there will always be a few people who will attempt (and probably succeed) in defeating that protection just for the bragging rights. It is an endless cycle that will not change. Just ask Microsoft.
re: Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the MassesData caps are allowing mobile broadband providers to take their services down-market very rapidly.
You can get a 1GB/month service for just -ú5 ($10) on 3 UK, so long as you take their voice service.
ItGÇÖs not a huge amount of data, but enough for email, web, etc. It makes it affordable alongside a fixed broadband connection, rather than instead of.
re: Rogers Takes Internet Meter to the Massesre: "I was not big into cell phones in the late 90s, but I remember it was incredibly expensive to get plans with a reasonable amount of minutes and then it was painfully expensive when you went over. And back then no one thought they would displace a POTS line to the home. Take a look at what competition has done today."
Well, this analysis is very poor and the claim that competition has driven mobile prices lower is completely wrong. What caused mobile prices to decrease is that providers are motivated to maximize their profits. In a cellular network the marginal cost vs. marginal revenues drives the decision making and not competition.
For each unit sold, marginal profit equals marginal revenue minus marginal cost. Then, if marginal revenue is greater than marginal cost, marginal profit is positive, and if marginal revenue is less than marginal cost, marginal profit is negative. When marginal revenue equals marginal cost, marginal profit is zero. Since total profit increases when marginal profit is positive and total profit decreases when marginal profit is negative, it must reach a maximum where marginal profit is zero - or where marginal cost equals marginal revenue.
Since the marginal costs to add a new subscriber is very small and marginal revenue significantly larger (and the early adopters paid for the build out) the perceived price decreases were not related to competition in anyway but rather to the economics described above. It's also what has driven consolidation of the industry. (Note: competition drives profits to zero which hasn't been the case at all.)
Are they? Mobile guys look like they might end up with caps too:
"...several operators have now capped usage at 5 GBytes a month. Why? Because the GÇ£tailGÇ¥ of the subscriber load ...is now in the tens of gigabytes a month for some users, or, for more wacky users, even north of 50 GB a month."
http://www.unstrung.com/blog.a...