I had a conversation with a network professional who was very interested in the idea of a "metered" plan. His thought was to open up the customer connections to full speed and run fair queues instead of throttling bandwidth. Pricing would be based on usage, but with very low rates compared to cellular or satellite (e.g., 100 GB for $60). The three main thoughts were:
1) Knowing that speeds would be better in off hours (somehow promoted or advertised) could get users to operate outside of peak times thus reducing peak load on the network. 2) Customer prices would more accurately represent their load on a system. 3) Plan sharing would not be a significant concern, as usage would rise and cost would rise. Now, I can see those benefits, but I have these specific concerns.: 1) If everything is opened fully today, network performance can only get worse over time as subscribers are added. 2) Variability in speed over the course of the day may cause customer concern. 3) Many video streaming services seem to suffer with variable bandwidth availability. Any thoughts on this method of providing service? It seems very close to the cellular plans where speed is almost never mentioned, only data use. I have some ideas to make such a service work, but I'd like to know others' thoughts and experiences. Thanks - Chris
