An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial

Mikael Abrahamsson swmike at swm.pp.se
Fri Jan 18 18:57:19 UTC 2008


On Fri, 18 Jan 2008, Rod Beck wrote:

> http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/61251.html

So, anyone but me think that this will end in disaster? I think the model 
where you get high speed for X amount of bytes and then you're limited to 
let's say 64kilobit/s until you actually go to the web page and buy 
another "token" for more Y more bytes at high speed? We already have this 
problem with metered mobile phones, which of course is even more 
complicated for users due to different rates depending on where you might 
be roaming.

Customers want control, that's why the prepaid mobile phone where you get 
an "account" you have to prepay into, are so popular in some markets. It 
also enables people who perhaps otherwise would not be eligable because of 
bad credit, to get these kind of services.

I'm also looking forward to the pricing, all the per-byte plans I have 
seen so far makes the ISP look extremely greedy by overpricing, as 
opposed to "we want to charge fairly for use" that is what they say in 
their press statements.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se



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