Selling Gigabytes by the Pound

[Jonathon Watkins]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3502742.stm' target='_blank'>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3502742.stm</a><br /><br /></div>Now here's an interesting idea. UK customers of BT will soon be able to temporarily increase their download speeds by paying a little extra. "It is to try out a "flexible broadband" scheme which would allow surfing speeds to quadruple at the click of a mouse. The trial is part of four broadband schemes announced by BT, which it hopes will help it reach its target of five million high speed connections by 2006. …..With BT's flexible bandwidth service, customers will be able to increase the speed of their connection from 512Kbps to 2Mbps whenever they need a faster downloading speed." Hmmm, is it really worth paying the extra to pull down your service packs a bit quicker one time? However, as <a href="http://www.arstechnica.com">Ars Technica</a> say,".. value-added services such as this are likely the next wave of broadband."<br /><br />"Though the price is yet to be finalised, it is expected to cost one to two pounds per gigabyte downloaded. The trials are due to start next month and the service due to be officially launched in the autumn. BT is also strengthening its ties with Yahoo, with a new product that will allow people to make phone calls over Yahoo's instant messenger software." BT getting into the VoIP market should be interesting. <br /><br />I like the idea of the broadband packages that are 512Kb during the day, but 2Mb in the evening and weekends, when I am more likely to use them. Set it and forget it. I'm just not sure I would ever get around to getting a temporary increase like BT would like. Everything comes down the 512Kb pipe eventually anyway. :) How about you guys?

[kagayaki1]

Given the nature of high demand times, wouldn't it be more likely that you would get 2MB/s during non-peak times, such as evenings (for consumers)? I would think it would be more like power and long-distance plans in pricing / speed.

I think their idea of using an off/on service is really neat, and it kind of gets around this "linked to the clock" idea.

[lonesniper]

I would like to see better upload speeds than temporary higher download speeds. I have NTL with 600K down and only 256K up. I would love to see 1Mb both ways and would happily pay for it.

Would make hosting my own site at home faster.

[ericdo]

I'm also on NTL with a 1Mb link. I'm really tempted to move over to bulldog's 2Mb primetime link. Which gives 512kb during the day and 2Mb at night and over weekends. It's really good value because it's no frills, you have to pay extra for mail and webspace, which is great if you have you own providers for that anyway. http://www.bulldogdsl.com/

[freitasm]

It's an interesting idea. I've just changed my cable plan at home from 256kbps to 10mbps. Yep, a huge increase in speed for around NZ$50 (US$30) more a month. Perhaps I could have a variable speed line here, to download those 800MB Battlefield 1942 updates...

[maximum360]

For $30 a month Verizon gives 1.5Mbs down and 256kbs up. While the upload speed needs work (I only really need it for hosting online games) it's not bad. Seems like a pretty good value to me. Although, I would not be opposed to the idea of increasing download speed during non-peak times and decreasing during peak times.

[krisbrown]

Not so sure, got a 1MB link at home, can't see me paying extra for just a doubling of speed.
The 1mb cap seems very arbitary though, I added together 70k of (illegal fire sharing :oops: ) a 40k game download and then clicked on a huge jpg from NASA it came down at 50k without slowing down any of the others.

As an employee of said company, I am sitting in an ever decreasing office as more and more digital exchange engineeers get sucked into broadband.
I am now 1 of only 2 left working on the actual 'voice' technology, in the whole of the NW of England.

BROADBAND REALLY IS THE WAY IT WOULD SEEM.

[Jason Dunn]

Hrm....512kbps is only 64 KB/s - that's some slow-ass "broadband". Fast enough for Web surfing, but for email and file downloads, that would suck. I'm lucky enough to get 500-600 KB/s from a fast server, so that's the speed I'm used to.

But if this "slow" speed was priced accordingly, I can see it making a difference in the adoption of broadband.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Hrm....512kbps is only 64 KB/s - that's some slow-ass "broadband". Fast enough for Web surfing, but for email and file downloads, that would suck. I'm lucky enough to get 500-600 KB/s from a fast server, so that's the speed I'm used to.

I thought that 64KB/s was usually considered the threshold of broadband speeds? I'm certainly happy with it for now. I dream of 500-600KB/s! 8O

[freitasm]

Hrm....512kbps is only 64 KB/s - that's some slow-ass "broadband". Fast enough for Web surfing, but for email and file downloads, that would suck. I'm lucky enough to get 500-600 KB/s from a fast server, so that's the speed I'm used to.

I thought that 64KB/s was usually considered the threshold of broadband speeds? I'm certainly happy with it for now. I dream of 500-600KB/s! 8O

Telecom New Zealand offers ADSL 128kbps and the fine print says "128kbps is not broadband, but fast narrowbrand". This is after some crown commissioner investigated the advertising and decided they were not correctly showing the product.

They only call broadband after 256kbps, which I think is not. I'm currently on 256kbps cable modem from Telstra, and as I said waiting for a bump to 10mbps.

Competition is cool. Telstra is offerring residential 10mbps for the same price Telecom New Zealand offers residential 2mbps. And Telecom next offer is 8mbps, for business only.

[Janak Parekh]

Hrm....512kbps is only 64 KB/s - that's some slow-ass "broadband".
Actually, most commercially-available broadband is in the 500kbps-1mbps range, Jason. You're just ahead of the game. ;)

I get about 1.5mbps at home on my cable modem, myself. 500KBps is roughly 4mbps, which puts you in the minority of broadband users.

--janak

[sponge]

Sounds like you might even have the Holy Grail of cable - uncapped.