It would probably be much better if internet service was metered but it would not go over well after we all have been used to the unlimited pipe.
I think that the real problem is not perceived acceptance by customers, but that moving to metered billing makes the service look more like a utility. If I were running an ISP I would want to do everything I could to keep people from equating my service with water or electricity.
This was 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7336940.stm
The ISPs have total control over their subscribers' connection fees. If they set them too low to make a profit,* then they need to raise those fees and live with the consequences, not go trying to extort profits from new sources.
*I don't believe for an instant that the major ISPs are actually hurting, mind you. They just see an opportunity to make even more of a profit.
Ha! Sorry can't read statements like that without laughing/cringing. We all lost our "unlimited pipe" years ago .. in fact I'd argue we never had it in the first place only that the technology prevented us from hitting our limits in the early days.
How do you stop that prankster on unmetered service from pingflooding you so you're charged hundreds of dollars?
Now that ads cost me money, I have good reason to do adblock.
Does it cost as much to download that file from a congested line as it does from my ISP's cache?
And when there's still congestion do I pay for all the retransmissions from dropped packets?
When you're paid per subscription, and you at most carry 64kbps through a small local area before long distance fees kick in, it works.
Even so, in Europe (and I believe most of the world) landline usage is metered. It is the US model of free local calls that is unusual.
If you're offering a service where you let other people interconnect their computer networks to each other, by definition you're only offering the service of connecting them to other people who (choose to) connect to the network.
Grandma just wasn't (until very recently) paying anything at all.
This is why we shouldn't conflate peering disputes with network neutrality issues. We're reading and hearing quite a bit that is abysmally stupid.
Comcast has no obligation to spend it's own money letting Netflix connect for free. The peering arrangement they had with Level3 was more than adequate to handle everything but the Netflix traffic, and now Netflix/Level3 is expecting Comcast to pay for the upgrades? Why? How is that fair?
I get sick of defending Comcast here. They are an abominable company that I hope goes bankrupt and out of business. But I keep reading really stupid things from people who aren't thinking through the implications of what they're saying.
If a call is made from Verizon to AT&T, no money changes hands between them.
ISPs have typically operated a B&K model where the traffic is largely symmetrical between carriers. The argument arrives when the flows aren't symmetrical (such as streaming video).
As for Comcast paying to upgrade their network, there is precedent in the Cable TV model where they both pay for the content and pay to upgrade their network to receive, carry and bill it.
Networks derive value from the connections. If there was proper local competition then this would fix itself over the course of a contract cycle since a competitor would enter offering a network with a better value.
"Electricity supply companies have found that almost 30% of the total electricity capacity in their networks is being consumed by customer's light bulbs. In order to support future demand, the electricity supply companies will begin charging light bulb manufacturers for light bulb users electricity usage."
Completely bonkers.