I’m sitting here listening to This Week In Google with Leo Laporte, and enjoying the conversation that is being had. It all started with a guy in New York who had his internet access taken away by Comcast for going over the stated cap’s that Comcast provides it’s users. The conversation they are having is about the cost of running an ISP, and how bandwidth is a very very cheap thing to pay for. While yes, the cost of bandwidth from the ISP to the user maybe cheap, and from the ISP to it’s partner is probably just as cheap because of peering agreements, theres a lot of infrastructure that goes along with providing service to a customer.
I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a subject matter expert, but I have designed, purchased, and implemented a data center, as well as serve as the PM for this, as well as spent countless hours with AT&T negotiating things like up time, equipment costs, schedules and etc. In addition to this, I have worked on many other equally high profile projects regarding infrastructure and uptime, with a perspective towards cost. With this all said, I can tell you that for an ISP to provide just the networking equipment and servers to support a given city, it will cost the ISP multiple-millions of dollars to just to buy the equipment needed to support them. Thats not including the annual support costs, which quite frankly cost about as much as the initial hardware purchase, or the staffing to take care of this. It all adds up, and yes bandwidth is probably cheap to an Internet Service Provider, but it’s a variable cost that in aggregate across hundreds of thousands of users in a given city, could end up costing them a lot as Netflix, and all the like continue to grow.
Just to be clear, I am not taking the side of the ISP’s. I’ve dealt enough with AT&T at a corporate level where I can tell you that your companies ability to function is the least of their concerns. They see themselves as nothing more then a dumb pipe provider to businesses. Cheap internet for home users is more or less a gateway drug for consumers, that can get them into other plans that have substantially lower infrastructure costs, but are charged at a much higher premium.
The solution to the upcoming datapacolypse isn’t tiers of internet, with the ISP’s cutting people off, or anything like that. But rather paying for internet activity like you would for your water. A reasonable amount per GB used. Somewhere around $.10-$.15 per GB, with a certain amount minimum, like 100GB. This model is not that different from the way electric companies bill us, and the total cost for people operating within their bandwidth allotment would on average be about $40, which is the average cost most people are paying for their internet anyway. People who abuse the system will end paying more, leading towards more money for equipment, infrastructure and staffing.
Sad truth is, we are all now reliant on the internet. Don’t think so? Try applying for a job at any major company. I doubt they will hand you a piece of dead tree to fill out in your leisure. They will probably direct you to their site. ISP’s cutting people off for people using the internet too much is unacceptable. Their activities are irrelevant if they are willing to pay a fair market price for it. Period. My water company doesn’t cut me off for a year because I take too many baths, but I will end up paying for my own fair usage.
