[clug] Query re Transact costs.

Paul Hampson Paul.Hampson at anu.edu.au
Sat Nov 27 03:00:14 GMT 2004


On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 at 03:36:49PM +0100, Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 at 11:27:32PM +1100, Paul Hampson wrote:
> > To my mind, the way to go is less quotaing, and more either pay as you
> > go or unmetered Internet. Choosing between the various Quota/Price
> > combinations is always a hassle, to my mind.

> Like you say, saving up quota just presents an uncertainty for the
> provider. After all, the ISP is paying for a fixed amount of bandwidth
> irrespective of how much is actually used. The ISP doesn't actually
> save any money by you using less. The whole point of the limits is to
> stop people singlehandedly sucking up all of the ISPs available
> bandwidth.

> Ofcourse, all of this is only an issue because the ISPs overcommit the
> bandwidth available by somewhere between 20 and 120 to 1. If they're
> heavily overcommitted then only one in 100 customers would need to be
> downloading all the time to completely use up all of the ISP's
> bandwidth.

With a little bit of queuing trickery (like that at lartc.org) you
can make it so that your customers suck up all your bandwidth as a
group, meaning that one guy can't shut the pipe down for the rest, but
20 guys can each get a 20th of your outbound pipe. Everyone still gets
less than their paid-for number, but if they wanted clear bandwidth,
they can go buy their own clear bandwidth. ^_^

> > TPG's recent 1.5Mbit unlimited ADSL plans will hopefully do interesting
> > things to the Internet market. I'm hoping the "here's some quota, but
> > we'll punish you if you overshoot it, and you get nothing if you
> > undershoot it" plans will give way to more straight-line plans (think
> > cost VS usage. ^_^)

> It'll get cheaper probably, the question is how much. The standard plan
> in holland is currently around EUR27 (AU$45) for 416/160 (pretty much
> the slowest available) totally unlimited (no it doesn't slow down after
> some threshold either). You pay the ADSL provider (KPN, like Telstra)
> seperately from the ISP (yes, two bills). The raw ADSL cost is EUR20
> (AU$33) and the plan cost is EUR 7.

So, just like TransACT. I'm glad to see that that model works. ^_^ If
only our local consumers weren't so confused by it sometimes. -_-;

I wonder what the Australian ADSL market would hve been like if _we_
had gone the same route, and had Telstra charging consumers for ADSL
tails, rather than the ISPs...?

I personally don't expect things in ADSL to get cheaper until companies
start going around putting in their own expensive equipment, as I
understand TPG have done, since Telstra are unlikely to drop the price
of their wholesale near-monopoly ADSL drops.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Paul "TBBle" Hampson, MCSE
7th year CompSci/Asian Studies student, ANU
The Boss, Bubblesworth Pty Ltd (ABN: 51 095 284 361)
Paul.Hampson at Anu.edu.au

"No survivors? Then where do the stories come from I wonder?"
-- Capt. Jack Sparrow, "Pirates of the Caribbean"

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