An Attempt at Economically Rational Pricing: Time Warner Trial

Sun Jan 20 20:03:32 UTC 2008

On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Buhrmaster, Gary wrote:

>
>
>> My guess is the market will work this out. As soon as it's implemented,
>> you'll see AT&T commercials in that town slamming cable and saying how DSL
>> is "really unlimited".
>
> If I were the DSL companies, I would consider advertising
> with a commercial recalling the fable of the tortoise and
> the hare.  You see a starting line, the rabbit jumps out
> early (8mb/s), and then crawls forward (64kb/s).  The
> turtle starts a little slower (3mb/s), but just keeps
> going, beating the rabbit easily.
>
... except that for the majority of users, the length of the racecourse is 
well and truly within the sprinting distance of the rabbit.

Guys, this isn't exactly a new idea if you include parts of the world 
outside of the USA.

For example, on my residential DSL service i've used 4.7G this month. With 
1/3 of the month left, I have more than half of my self-selected 10Gig cap 
available.  (And I grabbed at least two CD ISO's the other day.)

The model works.  What remains to be seen is whether it's actually 
feasible in a market where truly flat-rate services are hitting the market 
at margins where they can barely pay for themselves.

Mark.