----- Forwarded message from David Farber <[email protected]> -----
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:16:59 -0500 From: David Farber <[email protected]> Subject: [IP] Wireless: Overstating Smartphone Data Hogs? Reply-To: [email protected] To: ip <[email protected]> Begin forwarded message: From: Dewayne Hendricks <[email protected]> Date: February 10, 2011 9:09:15 AM EST To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <[email protected]> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Wireless: Overstating Smartphone Data Hogs? Reply-To: [email protected] Wireless: Overstating Smartphone Data Hogs? Verizon buried on its website a two-paragraph notice that its network was a "shared resource" among its customers. It further sighed that it would have to slow data speeds for the top 5 percent of its users to save its customers from the "inordinate data consumption of just a few users." In other words, the bandwidth hogs are ruining it for everyone. It's a curious phrase, "bandwidth hogs." Executives at Comcast used it earlier this decade to justify limiting traffic on file-sharing sites. This week several newspapers, writing about Verizon's decision, used the phrase "data hogs" in headlines. The phrase suggests a moral failing: the sin of gluttony. Wireless data is a finite resource. Data moves from a tower to a cell phone over electromagnetic spectrum, which carriers buy at auction from the federal government. Each carrier has a limited amount of spectrum, yet that limited amount renews itself, moment after moment. Think of electricity: The power plant runs all the time, but on hot days everyone turns on an air conditioner, straining the plant's capacity. Utilities are experimenting with smart meters that encourage customers to move their power use off-peak. Wireless carriers, responding to a similar challenge, have chosen not to treat data like a commodity. Rather, they've carved off 5 percent of their heaviest users and stigmatized them. This is a business choice, not a natural economic consequence. Imagine that a power company, to prevent blackouts, has informed its customers that its heaviest users will be penalized with unpredictable brownouts two months running. Why do wireless customers tolerate this from carriers? <http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_08/b4216031355061.htm> Courtesy of the Benton Foundation <http://www.benton.org> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress> ------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message -----
