Internet Usage Billing

There has always been the problem of billing in the telephone world and now in the Internet world. As one who has run phone companies I really hate billing, the costs are massive. You have to provide records of use, you get calls from irate customers, you need reconciliation and it adds 20-35% on the cost. I always suggested fixed fees and unlimited use since on the average we can predict the use to a fairly good number, on the average. So a few use little, they pay for if they want to and there are few hogs, there are always a few hogs.

Now in an Ars Technica piece they recount the changes in Canada. They will be billing by usage. The suggested fee is $2 per GB per month. Now let us do a simple calculation:

1. There are about 2.5 million seconds in a month

2. There are 8 Billion bits per GB

3. That is an average data rate of 3 Mbps per month for $2.

4. The ISP is most likely paying the Tier 1 carrier about $20 per Mbps per month. So we have a deal already? No?

Somehow we have a problem here. But there is a bigger problem. If I down load a Netflix like movie with say with an H.265 5Mbps 90 min movie I am downloading about 5000 seconds at 5Mbps or 25Gb or 3GB. Oops, that is already $6!

Is this what they are proposing. Will I get real time billing or will I suddenly see a $5000 bill unannounced appearing on my mailbox and have no recourse. I need itemized billing, and that in Internet space is a nightmare. How do I allocate it, by Google, by my blog, by my email. And all that junk sent to me, how do I stop that, and not get billed, after all it is billed to both sender and receiver.

And if I have some allocation for work, how do I do that, if I have separate billable projects.

Then how do I correct billing errors!

Do they have any idea what they are getting into. I agree that there will have to be some usage billing but at the seller not the receiver. Let Netflix, if it is them, pay the carrier, which they do, and let me get billed accordingly! The alternative is a nightmare. But after all that is what we have politicians and the FCC for, to create just such nightmares.