[101903] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Foster)
Sun Jan 20 15:11:53 2008
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:03:32 +1300 (NZDT)
From: Mark Foster <blakjak@blakjak.net>
To: "Buhrmaster, Gary" <gtb@slac.stanford.edu>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <D0D0330CBD07114D85B70B784E80C2F201544DF1@exch-mail2.win.slac.stanford.edu>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Buhrmaster, Gary wrote:
>
>
>> My guess is the market will work this out. As soon as it's implemented,
>> you'll see AT&T commercials in that town slamming cable and saying how DSL
>> is "really unlimited".
>
> If I were the DSL companies, I would consider advertising
> with a commercial recalling the fable of the tortoise and
> the hare. You see a starting line, the rabbit jumps out
> early (8mb/s), and then crawls forward (64kb/s). The
> turtle starts a little slower (3mb/s), but just keeps
> going, beating the rabbit easily.
>
... except that for the majority of users, the length of the racecourse is
well and truly within the sprinting distance of the rabbit.
Guys, this isn't exactly a new idea if you include parts of the world
outside of the USA.
For example, on my residential DSL service i've used 4.7G this month. With
1/3 of the month left, I have more than half of my self-selected 10Gig cap
available. (And I grabbed at least two CD ISO's the other day.)
The model works. What remains to be seen is whether it's actually
feasible in a market where truly flat-rate services are hitting the market
at margins where they can barely pay for themselves.
Mark.
