Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Benefits of Pay-Per-Byte

It's been threatened and squawked about for some time now, but pay-per-byte broadband services have been largely stayed by consumer uprising. And rightly so. The demand of the marketplace is what should guide product development and pricing. But, for a moment, lets consider the benefits to broadband consumers of pay-per-byte programs.

It could save you money. That's right! It is entirely possible that, if priced fairly, some mobile broadband users would find that they use far less than the fair usage of their plan. Of course, those who are opposed to this pricing model are not likely in this category, so let's move on.
It would drive demand for WiFi once again. With a more bandwidth-conscious consumer, there will be again a demand for WiFi meshes and hotspots. The development of these projects have stalled recently due to the ubiquitous coverage of wireless broadband, but if consumers were asked to pay for their usage, they would quickly look for more cost-effective solutions, demanding WiFi infrastructure once again.
It would speed up the Internet. No seriously! If there is a cost to download senseless data, random videos, huge apps, and music then traffic would shrink -- at least, the clutter would shrink. It's kind of like toll roads. Their generally faster to travel because fewer people get on them. Only those who are serious about transit will pay for the access to the freeway.
It would make broadband efficiency a central topic. When oil reserves seemed limitless, we built cars that required a gallon of gasoline to travel just 7 or 10 miles. As petroleum has become more precious, it's forced car designers to become more efficient. Software today is designed with the premise that bandwidth is limitless, and thus patches, updates, frequent API calls, back-and-forth syncing, etc. are used without any discretion -- resulting in a slower user experience.

In the end, the key is determining a fair price. Proposals for the per-byte costs have been met with resistance because they don't seem to fairly equate the value of the byte with the dollars asked. But, if the supply and demand can meet at a reasonable price, then maybe (juuuuust maybe) pay-per-byte could have positive impacts on the technology industry.

Labels: Broadband Speed, Economy, Fixed Wireless Broadband