[kwlug-disc] UBB comes to Teksavvy

[Kyle Spaans]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 9:20 PM,  <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:58:20 +0000, rbclemen at gmail.com wrote:
>>  It does not cost them 1.27 to provide
>
> You're right, it probably costs them many more thousands of dollars than
> $1.27. Without recouping their costs, why would they invest more in
> infrastructure, yet we are all complaining about speeds, and costs.

I think you're probably right about these "expanding infrastructure" costs,
and about how Bell is mostly trying to find a way to fund the new
infrastructure that they now have to build.

But I still think that Bell is doing it wrong. I don't think that stifling
innovation (probably all new innovative internet services will use
bandwidth), stifling competition (at least not allowing their
resellers to compete with them), and price gouging (I don't like
this argument because it does kind of make one sound like a
whiner) should be how the incumbents should recoup the costs
for their own mistakes (e.g. it was clearly a silly idea to try and
sell unlimited bandwidth to everyone :P).

The way I understand internet insfrastructure, the only variable
costs are electricity, rent, and upgrades. There should be some
straight forward math that lets you charge a flat rate to your
customers, guarantee a certain minimum speed, and offer
burstable high speeds as a plus -- all the while upgrading your
infrastructure as you go.

I used to think that internet ~= utilities like water or electricity, but
I realize now that at the core this is the wrong way to approach
how you pay for your internet use.

I'm glad that this issue has forced me too look for reasonable
competition, which I seem to have found. And I'll happily be
reporting my results when I switch ISPs.