RR User
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| reply to gaforces
Re: market seppuku?
There are only 2 reasons for TWC's plan for caps:
1. eliminate any competing video competition online.
2. profit, profit, profit!
As was stated in the article above... 40 gigs of bandwidth is 2-3 dollars *at most*, in actual cost. Comcast's proposed number (250GB) is *MUCH* more reasonable, and just goes to show that bandwidth, while a variable cost, is still quite cheap.
How else can you explain the explosion of video content sites now on the internet. The whole reason Youtube, and all the other video sites out there now exist is because bandwidth costs dropped to the point where it's profitable to stream video online.
If there is any issue with bandwidth overload it has more to do with local node congestion rather than the capacity and cost of service back at the headend. Docsis 3.0 is going to fix some of the current throughput limitations of the current Docsis spec, so local node congestion should be eased, and that's right around the corner, assuming cable companies are willing to upgrade (and I don't just mean competitive areas!)
In the end, it's really hard to feel bad for TWC, as with most broadband ISP's, they are making very comfortable profits. Just look at the front page... TWC is cutting off newsgroup access, they are just cutting off all their arms and legs to save a penny here and a dime there. It's all a mad run for money, but of course they aren't going to tell you that.
I'm certainly not endorsing reckless bandwidth consumption or anything of the like... but if you really knew how much TWC stands to gain in profit on your behalf of using bandwidth, you would probably be upset too. It would be the same as me telling you that gasoline only costs 20 cents a gallon to refine, transport, market and sell... so why are you paying $4.00 a gallon for it? |
