Pay-as-you-go broadband set to strangle services
As more US broadband providers look to use meters to measure usage, are high quality services going to suffer?
As more US broadband providers look to use meters to measure usage, are high quality services going to suffer?
As online media has become more sophisticated, the constraints on internet providers’ networks become all too apparent. Despite the promise of ‘all-you-can-eat’ broadband, some providers are struggling to maintain the quality of their networks.
Consumers’ hunger for online streaming services, such as Youtube, Netflix and Spotify, has caused groups to try and look at ways to keep the reliability of their networks going. In the US, some are increasingly looking at applying a meter to users’ internet connections to see how much bandwidth they use and to then charge accordingly.
Time Warner Cable, for example, have given some users a ‘usage tracker’ to install in their houses that will be rewarded with discounts for not going over a set amount of bandwidth a month.
Encouraging people to use less of these high-bandwidth services is likely to prove unpopular with business however, particularly after yearly promises of increased speed and high capacity networks.
The trouble the networks face is keeping up with demand. As services become more advanced, particularly with the imminent arrival of mainstream internet-equipped televisions, the networks are going to have to find a way to pay for rolling out stronger networks.
A Comcast spokesman told NYT: “Our network is not an infinite resource, and it is expensive to expand it.”
Penalising people for going over their data allowance is something that might bring in some more money, but it is also likely to stifle some of the innovation seen in online media. Perhaps instead of charging the consumer for using these services, providers should look to the businesses themselves for a contribution to the upkeep of their networks.
