Jun 14 2008
Facebook fan at Net Neutraility rally - Acroll's Flickr stream

ISP’s Testing Pay for Use Internet Plans: F- You, Pay Me! Part Two

What if you had to pay for every YouTube video you watched on the web? How about if the Lil Wayne album you downloaded for free ninety-mine, ticked you over your bandwidth limit and the meter started running.. 50 cents .. 1 dollar.. 2 bucks. Time Warner, AT&T, and Comcast are testing new service plans that charge people by the amount of things they do and use on the internet.

They set a limit. You pay $1 for every gigabyte you go over it.

“In a Time-Warner trial in Beaumont, TX, new customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte.”

The beautiful part of this scheme..

“People who watch television shows on Hulu.com, rent movies on iTunes or play the multiplayer game Halo on Xbox may start to exceed the limits - and millions of people are already doing those things.”

- Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic

The ISP’s say they are simpy trying to cover their costs.

Sounds like they are trying to stop the revolution - or at the least, backdoor net neutrailty.

Save the Internet!

That debate got a lot of heat in 2006/07 and sort of fell out of the headlines. It looks like the gatekeepers are going for it when no one is looking ie. We’re doing it anyway!!

The internet snuck up on big media, but they will find a way to grab it back. Get your wallet out.

Net Neutrality rally - May 2008 Acroll's Flickr stream

Help fight the power at - Save the Internet.com and the EFF

Images: (Acroll Flickr Stream)


☼ What's Your Opinion? ☼

1 Dale DeWitt Sat, Jun 14, 2008 - 10:40 pm

Fiber is improving so speed and cost should reflect that.  Caps reflect profiteering and not efficiency of transmission.

2 Marco Sat, Jun 14, 2008 - 11:46 pm

The only solution is for everyone to cancel their web service, use coffee shops until ISP’s starve to death.

3 Rhonda Sun, Jun 15, 2008 - 11:54 am

Marco, that is an excellent idea but EVERYONE will have to do it. I am definitely on board.

4 John Sun, Jun 15, 2008 - 12:27 pm

This is just a money grab by the cable companies.  The sad fact is that for the same price you can get over 60% faster (and unlimited) service in other countries like Japan. 

This maybe the only issue that Microsoft & Google can both agree on and it’s in their best interests to take their lobbying dollars to Washington to fighting the lobbying dollars that telecom’s are taking.

The fact is, the telecommunications companies have a government sponsored hold on the industry since they have been given special rights to backbone (both to maintain and profit).  A new company can’t just spring up and stake a claim over the backbone without paying their dues to these companies. 

If not, plan to see the sticker shock when you go over your limit (and mark my words, there will be outcry because no one will have any clue how much they’ve gone over until they get the bill because the telecoms will make it as hard as possible to figure out until they’re sued).  Sounds like the cell phone industry.

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