

ISPs "exaggerate the cost of data" - pwg
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/370393/isps-exaggerate-the-cost-of-data

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Bo102010
I have worked for ISPs where people who are making decisions about "bandwidth"
_do not understand_ the difference between "bits" and "bits per second."

These decision-makers would say that "Our costs for providing backhaul /
transport / whatever is going up - no matter how much we upgrade, its capacity
is exhausted either immediately or very quickly. We have to recover that cost
somehow, or we won't be able to continue providing any service."

However, they don't understand that their equipment and transport are
constrained at the level of "bits per second at peak" and not "sum of bytes
transferred during a billing period." So, they end up making bad decisions
about "charging $x per GB after y GB transferred per month."

~~~
Pyrodogg
How long until we get to peak and off-peak rates for data usage by ISPs, much
like some electrical utilities?

~~~
ajtaylor
That's certainly how it works for most Australian ISPs. And the off-peak times
only run from about 02:00 to 07:00. I'm lucky enough to have an unlimited ADSL
account with TPG, or my quotes would be a couple hundred GBs for the same
cost.

Luckily, I think competition is going to be making things better for the
Australian ISP consumer. That, and recent improvements/additions in undersea
cables.

~~~
nopassrecover
I can't speak for your experience with TPG, but a lot of users I know on TPG
hate the fact that they have "unlimited downloads" but in reality get limited
bandwidth due to an oversold service.

I decided I prefer a limited plan where I know what service level
(particularly latency and throughput) I can expect. For instance, plans with
Adam and Internode are not _that_ much more than a TPG plan for more usage
than I'll forseeably use (I get 500gb a month or so at 20mbps + VOIP for
$100), but the difference in gaming latency and actual speeds are both
considerably more stable and faster than friends on TPG.

~~~
ajtaylor
My experience with TPG has generally been very good. I connect at 17-18Mb/1Mb
and consistently download at 1.0+ MB/sec. Usually 1.4MB/sec, though I've seen
it drop to ~800KB/sec.

Given that your plan is 60% more than mine, I'll gladly pocket the difference
and live with the minor problems I've had. As another poster mentioned, I
chose to vote with my wallet. Generally small quotas + absurd off-peak times
(where the majority of the quota is allocated) make my blood boil and I'll
support anyone who helps break up the status quo.

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dave_sullivan
The report was commissioned by content providers so I suspect the truth lies
somewhere between.

Still, at least with my phone I have my choice of carriers and will be
switching from AT&T to Verizon this month. I don't have that same choice in
choosing a "high speed" ISP... I wish some comcast competition would move into
town, the consumer might end up with a better quality product.

~~~
irons
The truth doesn't have to lie somewhere in between. Look at the last
paragraph:

 _Even for ISPs running their own network, such as BT, [ISP CTO] Davies claims
the figures of €0.01-0.03 per GB are "rubbish". "It's an order of magnitude
greater than that," he claimed._

This is coming from a guy claiming that the "existing smartphone data tariffs
of around €10 per GB" are too low. They're profit-seeking, and relying on
their regulators to be as bad at math as they are.

~~~
click170
The problem, at least in Canada, isn't that the CRTC is bad at math, it's that
almost all of the people making decisions used to be executives for the ISP
and or Telecoms industry.

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masklinn
> Even for ISPs running their own network, such as BT, Davies claims the
> figures of €0.01-0.03 per GB are "rubbish". "It's an order of magnitude
> greater than that," he claimed.

Right. So let's start seeing those prices get in the 0.10~0.30€/GB now shall
we?

~~~
ColinDabritz
I'm sure you're right that prices are pretty low overall, vs the high rates of
overage fees, but I wanted to point out that the same people who can't tell
bits from bits per second and dollars from cents probably aren't using "an
order of magnitude" in the full scientific sense, but rather in the "a whole
lot more" sense.

I'd be interested in what an independent investigation would reveal.

~~~
joelhaus
Considering that almost everyone has a stake (i.e. as either a user or a
provider), I'd imagine that an independent investigation could only be done by
a government entity forcing disclosure of this information by a private
company.

Actually, does anyone know of a government funded ISP that makes this
information public?

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azulum
«Even for ISPs running their own network, such as BT, Davies claims the
figures of €0.01-0.03 per GB are "rubbish". "It's an order of magnitude
greater than that," he claimed.»

awesome, so it only costs about a quarter for a gigabyte. so i use about 20 GB
a month. can i just pay 5 bucks a month? yeah, i didn't think so. i'm pure
gravy for them, and what does comcast charge me for 4 to 10 Mbps? $70

and don't get me started about the fixed cost versus the variable cost—the
variable cost is certainly not more than a few cents per GB but the fixed
costs can be enormous.

i wish the internet was just a utility.

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ff0066mote
This is heartening news because connectivity is becoming a commodity. Will
anything come of it?

Recently net neutrality ended and now we have 250 GB/Month bandwidth caps as
Comcast customers. I'm not worried about ever hitting that cap, but I am
worried about the cap tightening over the next couple of years.

Everyone talks about Google and Facebook's control over their information, but
I don't hear enough concern about ISPs' collective control over access to
information.

~~~
vacri
Here in Aus we have always had caps. They've done nothing but increase over
the years. My SOHO plan with a quality ISP is $80 for 150GB, for comparison,
but you can get cheap no-frills residential for $40 for the same quota. I
doubt the caps where you are will come down much, if at all.

Last year my quota was 60GB, 1-2 years before that it was 25, so on and so
forth.

~~~
daemin
That and these days you can get 200, 500, 1000GB caps, which really are about
as good as unlimited as you can get. You'd really have to push to download
that much data in a calendar month.

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tompagenet2
I'm not quite sure what point the consultancy is making on the future mobile-
data rates. The article says:

 _However, it claims forthcoming 4G technologies will significantly reduce
those costs. "Forward-looking estimates which take account of the transition
to LTE [Long Term Evolution], additional spectrum and traffic subscriber
growth... puts the cost to the mobile network operators at under €1 per GB,"_

Does that include the cost of the 4G licenses? In the UK these haven't been
issued yet. If an operator pays £4bn [1] for the license and has 10m customers
it needs to charge an extra £1 to every customer every month for 33 years to
cover the cost of that license. That's not an inconsiderable amount before we
begin talking about data.

[1] Costs based on UK 2000 licenses:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/727831.stm>

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7952
Within the UK I think that you tend to get what you pay for from the ISP. They
just create irrelevant metrics and restrictions to prove to customers why they
should upgrade to a better plan. Perhaps they should just make the ISP's
publish typical speeds for a particular location, so that you can make an
informed comparison. This is exactly what better informed customers already
do, instead of just going with BT.

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frink
This is the report being talked about for those that are interested [PDF]:
[http://www.plumconsulting.co.uk/pdfs/Plum_October2011_The_op...](http://www.plumconsulting.co.uk/pdfs/Plum_October2011_The_open_internet_-
_a_platform_for_growth.pdf)

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gergles
In other news: "water wet", "pope catholic", "bears shit in woods".

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nasmorn
For mobile data you can get variable cost plans in Austria that you pay about
4$ per Gb for. So the cost cant be higher than that.

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tomjen3
Why are we even having this discussion? It is just a bunch of companies who
want a subsidy because.. well because they want a subsidy.

The best way to end it is to slap them with a higher tax until they shut up.

But that would require both balls and common sense.

~~~
bryanh
I don't understand this logic, what would the higher tax accomplish?

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suivix
Punishing the greedy capitalists?

~~~
delinka
Or adding yet another hike to your internet bill. Do you really think taxes
prevent companies from going up on prices? Of course not. It won't affect
their profits at all. They'll just charge customers more to offset the tax.

