[IP] Re: ALSO MUST READ NYTimes.com: Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic "People seem to be missing the point."

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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From: Seth Breidbart [sethb@panix.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2008 4:22 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] ALSO MUST READ  NYTimes.com: Charging by the Byte to Curb  Internet Traffic "People seem to be missing the point."

I don't think consumers will like variable pricing.  I'd suggest a simpler
technique.

Right now, I have a cable modem, with "up to 8Mbps" speed (with more
burstable for the beginning of a large transfer, which I think was created
to look good to speed test sites).

I can see a system in which the basic user gets up to, say, 2Mbps at high
priority, and anything more he asks for at low priority.

Users can also pay more to get high priority for more bps.

At any given time, if the high priority usage is less than capacity, it
all goes through; the rest of the bandwidth is allocated equally to all
the low priority users.  If the (attempted) high priority usage is greater
than capacity, everybody gets cut back to a percentage of their high
priority amount.

That means each consumer pays a fixed, known, monthly charge, and large
users who want more priority pay for it.

Seth





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