| Quote from: Townman |
Jelv,
As I've suggested before, speed based charging is the only way to get BTOR to fix their infrastructure. 25p per month per Mbps across all services. The more you get the more you pay and you don't pay for what you can't get.
Everyone has to have a dream!
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I agree to an extenct, not to the extreme of varying it for every mbit, but burst speed charging should be at the port level.
Now the funny thing is that is how broadband is charged for in most places of the world, and its also how BT were charging before ofcom intervened back in the early 2000s.
The method of charging e.g. the same for a fixed 512kbit product the same as a up to 8mbit adsl product, was artifical pricing, by ofcom to reduce pricing of higher headline speeds. BT were compensated by allowing to charge excessive amounts on the backhaul. This is one reason why BTw backhaul got so expensive.
With FTTC speed based charging has been reintroduced but only to a small factor of the overall charge, the difference on the VDSL port from 40/2 to 40/10 to 80/20 is still very small and is still largely subsidised by the backhaul.
When BT 21CN came out with ads2+ services it made me feel sick that 24mbit services were cheaper than 8mbit and there was still no financial give back for those with crappy lines.
At least FTTC has improved this somewhat in that the average speeds are higher on the scale than on adsl, and that even a poor FTTC line still is a half decent service, and of course there is lower speed products which are cheaper to compensate. But it isnt enough in my view and I would like to see much bigger differences in price between different speed products.
The reason it came about is mainly because ofcom didnt like that on the old pricing 2mbit adsl was considered out of reach to joe bloggs costing over £50 a month. This is the major downside of speed based charging tho.
Basically would either have to reduce the price for lower speeds to the point they may be loss making, which in turn could have isp's refusing to provide a service to poor lines. Or keep prices as they are for low speed lines but push up the price for higher speed services eg. £40-50 month for 80/20. This would probably cause a consumer backlash and takeup would plummet. There is maybe a middle ground where perhaps £30 a month or so for 80/20, with backhaul costs remaining high to partially compensate.
Regarding low cost and high cost areas, its very liikely it costs many multiples more to supply a remote village than it does a metro area. The £7.50 I imagine is actually not enough, Again if we compare to other countries, we have much better broadband in rural areas than others do, most countries dont even bother or just stick with low speed adsl at best. This has probably held back city areas, as likewise our broadband in city areas is poor compared to other countries. In the UK I think most isps are using the low cost subsisidy to subsidise high cost areas as they have fixed pricing regardless of area, plusnet is the only one I know off that varies it.
The 20Mbps U/S would be very welcome. 
