Ready For Metered Bandwidth?

I did a post exactly one week ago titled Is Unlimited Bandwidth Going Away? Verizon thinks so… and got a very large response so thought it would be a good time to do some follow-up. On the first post I just grazed this subject without giving any specific examples – now it’s time to go-into some of the details.

This is an issue I am passionate about as it will absolutely have a major impact on the domain name world. If the consumer starts to become conservative with how many sites they visit or videos they watch it will change the landscape of the web…and quickly.

So who brought-up this subject recently? Richard Lynch, the CTO of Verizon Communications. Now some people sent me emails saying this was an announcement made years ago and they would never follow-though…that’s not the case. Richard said the following on September 29th 2009 at the FTTH Conference and Expo:

The broadband industry “will see a pricing paradigm shift” because Internet service providers “cannot continue to grow the Internet without passing the cost on to someone.”

This means that our broadband connection at home could follow a similar pricing structure as our cellphones. Richard Lynch said the following about this progression:

“We are going to reach a point where we will sell packages of bytes,” Lynch said. “Now I’m not announcing a new pricing plan. But we have already gone this way in wireless because that is where the resource is most constrained.”

Scary? Yes – but it’s not a reality yet so don’t panic. It is important to be aware of the potential changes that are coming and better understand how this could change our world.  I’m just starting to postulate how to position my own business and domains if the landscape does change. I think it’s always better to be prepared for anything so that if a change does happen you can not only be ready for it – but benefit.

I would be very interested to hear from all of you. Assuming bandwidth does become metered how do you think this will impact Domaining or the Internet in general? Share your opinion and let your voice be heard!

Oh – and if you want to read the full article about this topic please click on the link below:

Verizon CTO sees eventual move to metered broadband

Since I like to always show both sides of an issue I’ve included an article below published yesterday throwing doubt on how long metered broadband would actually last.

Why metered broadband won’t last

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton