In recent years we have become very attached to the internet. As a matter of fact one household may have several internet subscriptions. Back home my family has seven different internet subscriptions and we are a household of five people. Here in the states I am living with one roommate and in total we are paying for three different internet subscriptions. We have an internet connection with Comcast and two subscriptions with AT&T for our phones. The one at home we use to connect our laptops, a Sony Playstation, a television and sometimes our phones. It is critical to have all three subscriptions or else I would not be able to access the cloud on the go or BBM my buddies from all around the world. It is very convenient and crucial to have all three internet subscriptions, but what I have a problem is the price and the bit cap.
For those who might not know what a bit cap is, it’s when your ISP gives you a maximum download capacity per day or per month. AT&T has a bit cap in which you can choose beforehand and if you pass that cap they would charge you depending on your usage. In Kuwait you have a bit cap per day and once you reach that cap you the download rate drops significantly. Your internet connection would like something from the early 90’s. Yes that slow. If an ISP would like to have a bit cap they should at least have reasonable caps.
My other concern is the price we are being charged to be able to access the internet. With economies of scale the fixed cost per user must decrease thus eventually what we as user pay must be lower. Industry leaders are able to lock its customers into contract which makes it impractical to switch to another provider. Also they are able to charge high prices and when their consumers increase they decrease the fixed cost per user increasing their profit margin. The sad part is we, as consumers, have no power of this.
“Your ISP Is Screwing You: As Your Service Costs Go Up, Their Backbone Costs Go Down” is an interesting article posted during the summer. It is somewhat short but worth reading.
