Last week Comcast got a lot of attention for giving priority to its online video service Xfinity. That move makes even more sense (from a Comcast business perspective) and becomes more worrisome (from a Net Neutrality perspective) given Comcast’s recent decision to charge users who go over a monthly data limit.
To be fair the limit seems pretty generous – 300 gigabytes for basic Internet plans.According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, only 1 percent of U.S. Internet users use that much data in a month. (Although I could see a family of 5 going through that quickly enough – especially if viewing HD video.) And the charge is not exorbitant $10 for every 50 gigabytes over that limit. And this does replace a lower cap (250 gigabytes/month) that led to customers getting cut off rather than charged. But it’s the precedent that seems to be the issue here – especially since the Xfinity video service does not count against that monthly limit.
As is often the case the most interesting part of the story is the comments section. Some folks are happy that the “basement nerds” will pay their share. Some worry that this is a slippery slope and that soon customers will be charged for every download. Some feel that this is a reaction to folks getting video from places other than traditional TV/cable. And some just want to talk about the favorite or most hated politicians/businesses/neighbors.
What I do not understand is why people think that internet service should be unlimited or “all you can eat”. You pay for water buy the gallon, power by the kilowatt, natural gas by the therm, liquid propane buy the gallon, and so on. Why should data not be billed per megabyte? The wireless carriers are doing it, why can’t the wire line companies do it? The routers, switches, DSLAMS, OLT’s, fiber, copper, etcetera all cost money to build, maintain and upgrade. Lots of companies have to pay for bandwidth too, it’s not free by any means. Metered billing is coming, get used to it. ISP’s simply cannot support the business model of Netflix, Hulu, and others. Either they need to pay for the data transfer or the customer does. The USF reform is/will not help the matter any.
I think in this case the problem may not be charging the fee based on usage – but the fact that a user doesn’t incur the fee if they use Comcast for video. It means that Comcast controls the transport and content, which can lead to a situation where few folks control access to media.