Comcast, use-based pricing, and Canada
In the U.S., Comcast is experimenting with “use-based pricing” (which sounds an awful lot like usage-based billing). The NYT reports:
In the test markets, 300 gigabytes will be the monthly allotment of data for a basic broadband Internet customer. From there, Comcast will try charging a premium for additional data. In one of the tests, customers will be able to buy more data access in what Comcast calls “increments” or “blocks”: for instance, $10 for 50 gigabytes.
One of the article’s writers, Brian Stelter, was interviewed on last week’s On the Media. During the interview, he did a little futurecasting:
I can imagine in the future having to choose both how fast the connection I want, as well as how much data I want to be able to use.
Whoa. Hang on! Internet plans where you pay according to both speed and volume? That sounds awf… oh, wait a second. That’s business as usual in Canada.