[12236] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: effect of metered vs. flat rate (was Internet v. Minitel)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barney Wolff)
Tue May 10 23:55:59 1994
Date: Tue, 10 May 94 15:28 EDT
From: Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
To: dave@corecom.com, com-priv@psi.com
> Date: Tue, 10 May 94 10:04:00 EDT
> From: "David M. Piscitello" <corecom@tigger.jvnc.net>
>
> The cost of my SLIP account, formerly $99/month, unlimited usage, will
> DOUBLE shortly for unlimited usage (yes, double). Metered service
> will drop to a "modest" $49/month, with $4.95 per metered hour of
> service. This model affects some users (probably not me, so don't
> interpret this as whining) in several ways, including
> - graphical interfaces, retrieval of audio and graphical information
> becomes problematic (read $$$$)
> - newsgroups and noisy mailing lists (ahem...) become a financial
> liability
> which sort of reduces the view of internet services to something you
> get from Minitel (welcome to the past). I'm not sure what Russ'
> concern about billing is (which provider), but given the current
> state of affairs, there is no reason to conclude that flat rate local
> services = flat rate internet services (I'll leave the issue of PGP
> and security alone for the moment...). There's also good reason to
> believe that metered SLIP connectivity is a precursor to metered
> info retrieval services. I'm more than a bit concerned that cheap Internet
> access is may turn out to be an oxymoron.
Have you considered that perhaps your provider is changing because they
could not make money at $99/mo for unlimited access? When I had a PSI
unlimited SLIP account, it was roughly $170/mo, after a discount, which
accords with jvnc's new price.
After all, if you work efficiently, it's not until you're downloading
more than 36 MB/month that your new bill will even match your old one.
Why aren't you celebrating?
If you want flat-rate billing, and can find a provider who will give it
to you at the price you want to pay, by all means switch. If you can't
find one, then perhaps it's because it costs the provider too much.
There are few barriers to market entry right now, as evidenced by all
the new providers springing up. In a competitive market like this,
it's quite unlikely that all the providers can conspire to keep prices
far above costs.
Barney Wolff, Pres. Voice: 914-591-6572
Databus Inc. Fax: 914-591-5677
15 Victor Drive Internet: barney@databus.com
Irvington, NY 10533-1919 USA "At the corner of database & datacomm"
