With the caveat that "network neutrality" means different things to different people, it is striking that some observers think bandwidth caps for excessive use have anything whatsoever to do with network neutrality.
That's a little like arguing bigger or smaller buckets of mobile voice or text usage constitute some sort of "neutrality" issue. It's a business issue, nothing more.
The discussion is sparked by news that Time Warner is testing usage-based pricing for broadband access in a few markets, for new customers. The idea undoubtedly is that the new plans will be price neutral for 95 percent of customers, and affect only "extreme" downloaders or really-heavy peer to peer customers.
Once the test starts, new customers will be offered a choice of four plans that allow them to download set amounts each month--5, 10, 20 or 40 gigabytes. The typical user now consumes something on the order of three gigabytes a month.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Fuzzy Thinking on Network Neutrality
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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