Some happy news seen on the newswires:
For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.
One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.
That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.
AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement.
I was not happy when Sprint announced they would start metering my wireless modem. But that wasn’t too bad, in the grand scheme of things, since we have unmetered broadband at home.
However, metering the home broadband line….ouch!
We’ll adapt, of course. However, if they’re going to increase prices for bandwidth consumption, I’d like to see the quality of the pipe improved. Or, perhaps this provides a convenient way for ISPs to do an end-run around calls for net neutrality: meter the bandwidth, but access to these special content-providers is available, at no limit, all for a low monthly fee (and exposure to favored advertisers)….
