By Tim Ferguson
Published: Monday 28 January 2008
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Name
Simon
Location
Cumbria
Occupation
IT
Comment
It seems simple enough to me !
The content providers (such as the BBC) already pay (quite a bit I expect) for their end of the network. The individual consumers pay for their bit. In between, the UK ISPs all peer with each other (mostly at LINX).
Simply, if it isn't "unlimited" then it shouldn't be called "unlimited" - period. Every service should be sold on the guaranteed rate available (ie the guaranteed rate taking into account contention ratios) with max rate being relegated to the small print. Services should also have a well defined data transfer allowance - again in the large print.
Put both these in the publicity material and people will soon work out what's wrong - once ISPs can no longer lie about how much they've oversold their bandwidth.
People can still have "cheap" or "free" packages if they want - but they'll know what they are (or rather aren't) getting.
At the moment it's hard for an honest & decent ISP to survive, let alone grow. If they compete honestly then the masses ignore them because of the perceived expense of their product. How do you sell something for £30/mo when others 'claim' to be selling the same thing for £10/mo ?
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