internet sausage

...no one seems to look back at the consumer internet access costs for comparison. In the early days, when many people had AOL, there were caps and metered billing. And some people used it, certainly, but it was nothing compared to what happened when AOL finally dropped its caps and suddenly people could really embrace and use the internet without worrying about hitting their usage cap. Unlimited internet access is what helped drive internet usage, making it such a powerful and useful platform. Mobile operators seem to want to go in the other direction and are working hard to try to limit how useful many people find their phones, due to limiting data plans.

While the AOL example is good, it was really AT&T that pioneered flat-rate unlimited dial-up Internet access, with their WorldNet service. So it's doubly sad to see AT&T pioneer the backwards-looking data caps now attached to iPhones and other devices.

It seems all telco, cable and other Internet-access providers are pushing for metered billing or oppressive bundles when consumers have made it clear Internet access -- at high speeds and without caps -- are the preferred service.

Telecom providers fear selling "dumb pipes" because then they'd have to compete on a level playing field: bits, speed, latency and reliability would be comparable across delivery modes (DSL, cable, satellite, wireless) and tiered plans. And we wouldn't want THAT, would we?