maartena
Obama 2008
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Define Utility.....
Nowadays, Utilities are usually paid for per usage. You take long showers you pay more for water. Its basically that way with every utility that you have. Water. Gas. Electricity. Phone.
Internet is still flat fee. You do not pay for usuage per byte (although there are a few exceptions).
Now go back in history..... pretty much all Utilities mentioned above started off as a flat fee service. You paid a flat fee, and you got as much electricity you needed. This was of course in a time where the light bulb and an odd device here and there were the only real usage for electricity. As soon as the twenties came along, and more and more electrical appliances came to a household the electricity became metered and you paid for what you used. The same with gas and water, and depending on where you live some larger buildings and/or living communities still share a flat fee gas or water price, but it is getting very rare.
Internet could be a utility, but will it be billed as one? $14,95 for your base Internet connection, with 2 free Gigabytes to overcome packetloss, and free local traffic if you download your software and video services from the local server. (Microsoft patches etc could be put on there).
In the future, I expect that Internet will become as a phone line. You pay a base rate. You can local tollfree "calls" on your local network where many downloadbles can be found, and you pay a fee per Gigabyte that you grab from the outside world. Mail and Usenet services are from the ISP itself so "local toll free" so to speak.
Will that ever happen? With the way broadband is going down in price, there's a good chance that it will.....
By the way, fast internet is available in all 48 states and possible HI and southern AK as well..... by DirecWay satellite or some other provider using satellites. Not great for gaming, but great for webbrowsing and downloading as a family.
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And i'm right. I'm always right, but this time I'm a little more right then I usually am. |
