A Sneaky Assault on the Future of the Internet. Comcast recently announced it was considering extra charges for users who consume more than 250 GB of bandwidth per month. After 250 GB, users could purchase additional bandwidth in 10 GB amounts for $15 each. On its face, this plan sounds very reasonable. I’ve monitored my bandwidth usage before, and I’m what many would consider a fairly heavy user. In a good month, I generally wouldn’t exceed 30 GB of bandwidth. That’s a little peer to peer file sharing, a lot of music streaming, occasional software downloads. Maybe a Linux image…

If a “pay-by-the-byte” pricing scheme is necessary for the economic survival of US ISPs, then how on earth are the ISP’s in Asia and elsewhere making it? Here are some current prices from Asia: Japan: 100 mb/s symmetrical FTTH – $51/ month US 47 mb/s down, 5 mb/s up ADSL – $6.00 / month https://asahi-net.jp/en/ Korea: 100 mb/s symmetrical FTTH – $36.63 / month 50 mb/s symmetrical FTTH – $30.22 / month 10 mb/s symmetrical FTTH – $27.40 / month http://www.megapass.net/service/megapass/IN_PImegftth02W.php Then Hong Kong Broadband Network offers FTTH with symmetrical speeds ranging from 10 MB/s all the way to 1…

It never fails to amaze me how the telcos shills populate user forums. There was a story on broadbandreports.com: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/81287 5% of ISP Users Generate 45.3% of Traffic On the flip side, 40% generate just 3.8%… Ellacoya is a supplier of network hardware that can monitor and shape network traffic, and they recently shared some of their findings with ISP Planet. The company notes that 5% of users (aka “bandwidth hogs”) generate 45.3% of traffic, whereas at the other end of the spectrum 40% of users (aka “barely users”) generate just 3.8% of traffic. VoIP use spiked in 2006 for…

I don’t believe wireless and fiber will ever really compete. I think there will always be a place for both. They both have unique attributes: wi-fi’s portability, and fiber’s speeds. Each has it’s own place – they compliment each other. The main problem with wireless – at least at this early stage of the game – is that it just can’t provide enough bandwidth to effectively compete with fiber. I haven’t really kept close tabs, but it seems like most of the metro wi-fi projects are advertising speeds ranging between 1-3 mb/s. Now 3 mb/s may be just great for…

BellSouth and a few others telecos have recently started advocating a “pay-by-the-byte” type of pricing scheme. Under those proposals, consumers who access high-bandwidth applications, like file sharing or VoIP or online gaming would pay more than people who just web surfed or read email. An example of the current justification for the proposed pay-by-the-byte pricing was given by BellSouth Chief Technology Officer, William Smith. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Smith, they said, “often laments the fact that his parents, who use the Internet for only low-capacity activities such as Web surfing and email, pay fees similar to those…

Below is an open letter to Click! Network management. For nearly six months now, Click! Network subscribers in the City of Tacoma and surrounding areas have had to pay 33% more for their broadband Internet service than similarly situated customers of Comcast and Qwest. Why is this? There really is no rational answer. How could anyone have failed to notice that Comcast and Qwest had changed their product offerings, effectively lowering their prices? How could anyone have thought that Click could be competitive with the “big boys” by allowing their rates to remain 33% higher than everyone else? Click’s management…

Here’s what I think is going to be big in the near future: A lot of the commercial software publishing places have immense pipes for software downloads, now. And if the people in the forums are telling the truth, download speeds are mostly not capped (on the software publisher’s end). The most prominent online publisher right has got to be Valve, with their Steam distribution system (http://www.steampowered.com/ ) which they used to distribute Halflife 2. I heard that they had a phenomenal amount of bandwidth available for the release of HL2 – something like 1,500 Mb/s. I’m not aware of…