[2458] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Billing philosophy, World, and user studies
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Simmons)
Sat Feb 29 15:24:21 1992
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
To: GENOL@UCCMVSA.BITNET (Genevieve Engel)
Date: Sat, 29 Feb 92 15:08:01 EST
Cc: COM-PRIV@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9202290956.AA01070@psi.com>; from "Genevieve Engel" at Feb 29, 92 01:56:32 am
>Does anyone know of ways in which this changes end user behavior?
I don't have any formal data, but can offer two real-world examples of
what usage-based billing does.
A few years back I worked at a subsidiary of Schlumberger then called
Applicon (now Schlumberger Technologies). We had a leased line between
our Billerica MA and Ann Arbor MI plants. This line was ours, owned
and operated.
Schlumberger then developed SINet, the Schlumberger Information
Network. SINet (does) did usage billing. The usage billing for the
same bandwidth line (assuming you used it heavily) was significantly
higher than the flat costs. Use of SINet was mandated by very senior
management. Local management wanted us to make major changes in our
work style, and in fact we were forced to cut back on our usage. Other
Schlumberger sites were seriously looking at things like changing the
frequency with which IP routing packets were transmitted.
Our site elected to get our newsfeed over an unreliable local uucp
connection rather than pay the SINet network use fees for a much
better NNTP connection. So yes, usage fees changed behavior. In our
case, the impetus for that change came from management.
To cite a different example, ADP Network Services does usage billing to
its customers. About a decade ago, I was responsible for a subroutine
library which many ADPNS products used. In a fit of right-mindedness,
we did a project which made the library run faster. The product
managers became upset, because the revenue stream went down. They
"fixed" the "problem" by jacking up the billing coefficient whenever
the routines in this particular library ran. Go figure....
