Etan Horowitz, Sentinel Staff Writer
May 4, 2009; Pg. M4
Right now, consumers pay the same rate for Internet service if they just send a few e-mails and browse the Web or if they download lots of movies and conduct long phone calls.
But that could change. Several of the nation’s high-speed Internet providers are exploring the idea of charging people based on how heavily they use the network. Known as “Internet metering” or “consumption based billing,” the idea is that just like water or electricity, Internet bandwidth is a finite resource and the people who use it the most should be charged accordingly.
None of the major Internet service providers in Central Florida has plans to test metering — as yet.
Providers say some solution is needed because a small percentage of users, often called “bandwidth hogs,” are using the majority of the capacity on their networks, which slows things down for everyone else.
“When someone is using that massively disproportionate amount of data, it begins to degrade the online experience for other customers near them,” said Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman. “It’s an important threshold to protect the 99 percent plus who want to get their fair share of bandwidth.”
Comcast, which serves a portion of Central Florida, does not have plans to meter Internet usage, but it does have a 250-gigabyte cap of monthly Internet usage per customer. Customers who exceed the limit are asked to cut back. If they refuse, the company can suspend their accounts.
Bandwidth is different from the download and upload speeds that providers tout, and it refers to the amount of data that it used to perform an action, such as stream a video, download a song, or send an e-mail.
Douglas said that less than 1 percent of Comcast’s 14.7 million customers ever come close to the 250 GB cap threshold and to reach it, you would have to send 50 million plain text e-mails, download 125 standard definition movies or upload 25,000 high-resolution digital photos. Most customers typically use between 2 and 4 GB a month, he said.
Tests of metering by AT&T and Time Warner typically let customers choose a monthly cap ranging from 5 GB to 150 GB. Exceeding that limit can cost them $1 per GB.
Opponents say that even if the majority of Internet users will never come close to a cap or monthly limit, the mere existence of a limit will cause people to curtail their Internet usage out of fear going over. “As soon as you meter it, people will ration it and probably use less than they are metered for just to be safe,” said Kurt Nelson, 18, of Winter Park. “It’s damaging to the Internet overall because you would then have to think before visiting Web sites or watching a video. What makes it great you can visit Web sites for free.”
Nelson, a senior at Winter Park High School, says he typically uses about 65 GB a month for things such as making phone calls and watching online video, but his usage can range anywhere from 25 to 125 GB.
Jeff Kagan, a telecommunications analyst from Atlanta, said part of the problem is that the amount of data an average person is consuming continues to increase, so defining a bandwidth hog can be tricky. “The average customer today is going to look like the super user today in five years,” Kagan said.
Recently, Time Warner Cable, which does not serve Central Florida, said it was shelving plans for further trials of consumption based billing in Texas, North Carolina and New York. AT&T, which offers Internet service locally, has also been testing metering. New customers in Reno, Nev., and Beaumont, Texas, can choose from a monthly bandwidth allowance ranging from 20 GB to 150 GB a month.
Customers get a month grace period the first time their limit is exceeded and after that, they’re charged $1 a GB.
Gretchen Schultz, an AT&T spokeswoman in Orlando, said the company has no plans to extend its trials to Florida. But the future is clear, she said.
“AT&T has previously stated that some type of usage-based model that impacts customers who have abnormally high usage patterns seems inevitable,” Schultz wrote in an e-mail. “For us, this is a starting point and a preliminary step to find the right model and solution that addresses the industry trends and the needs of our customers.”