Inevitable death, was Re: Verizon Public Policy on Netflix

Tue Jul 15 04:05:21 UTC 2014

At 09:40 PM 7/14/2014, John Curran wrote:

>Myself, I'd call such fees to be uniform, 

Ah, but they are not. Smaller providers pay more per IP address than larger ones. And a much
larger share of their revenues as the base fee for being "in the club" to start with.

>but do recognize that such uniform fees have a disproportionate impact on 
>smaller service providers.

If they were uniform, they would still have a bit of a disproportionate impact, but less so. 
If they were on a sliding scale, it might be fair. Remember: Our average profit
is $5 per customer per month, and our customer base is limited by population. If I were
in this business just for the business, I'd find a more profitable business, but I CARE
about my community and accept a smaller return on my investment to help folks get connected.
(This doesn't mean that I'm a charity, but it does mean I'll never get the profits or the ROI
of a large, urban provider.)

It would be nice if what I do was also understood and valued by the Internet community at large.

--Brett Glass