I believe you think I *dislike* flat-rate pricing.
No, as a network provider I believe *I* dislike flat-rate pricing. As a network consumer I believe I *like* flat-rate pricing.
Nope; I won't *buy* anything else; let me tell you about my $800 skytel bull sometime...
Usage based pricing has the advantage that it incents the subscriber to conserve resources. When the usage goes up and I need to expand the facilities, the cash flow is there to support it.
Fine, but in a packet-switched environment, this is a much less steep hill to climb than it is when counting modem lines...
That is true but there is still a usage issue. Whenever you are bandwidth limited bigger consumers are always a problem. Usage-based is also the fairest way to bill for resources consumed. If network providers would make usage based pricing reasonable I wouldn't care that much but they often see it as a way to gouge out rediculous profit.
And when properly applied, most users save money doing usage-based pricing rather than flat-rate pricing. At one point we offered people the opportunity to switch to usage-based pricing and showed them how their bills for the last three months would have gone down if they switched. In spite of all sense, they stayed with flat-rate pricing. <sigh> I guess it does make billing simpler.
That's not the only reason it's popular, though...
Remember, I am viewing it from the provider's side of the picture.
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Brian Lloyd 6501 Red Hook Plaza, Suite 201 [EMAIL PROTECTED] St. Thomas, VI 00802 +1.340.998.9447 - voice +1.360.838.9669 - fax GMT-4
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