[LINK] Net charges

[Adrian Chadd]

On Mon, Mar 03, 2008, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> Adrian writes,
> 
> > Of course, all of this blindingly fast DSL is worth absolutely b**
> > all if the usage caps and pricing models remain as they are today.
> 
> On a related topic, regarding broadband costs and the education revolution
> 
> This weekend, Anne (a Vic School Teacher) writes:
> 
> "My Year 9 girls uploaded the digital movies they made as part of ICT
> onto their personal blogs, and in 8 mins, one of the girls had spent $18.
> I won't tell you how much internet money I have used as a teacher in 3
> weeks. Anyway we have revised our plans to allow greater download and will
> monitor our usage closely. This is one downside to using web2.0 to its'
> potential in the classroom." (end-quote)

Wow, whats their charging rate?

I'd just like to point out the AARNet charging again -

http://www.aarnet.edu.au/Content.aspx?p=117

>From the page:

2. Off Net Subscription : A commodity Internet traffic allowance and charge equivalent to the total
   download traffic and charge for the previous twelve months census period.

3. Excess Traffic Charge : $7 per Gigabyte for all Off Net download traffic in excess of the Off Net
   Subscription allowance. 

   .. which In reality AARNet set the "expected" traffic amount, tell you a price,
   and you pay that. If you go over their expectations then its $7 a gigabyte.
   Every year you go over the limit even though students and staff are accounted
   down to per-byte per-user.

Somehow in 2008 Australian educational institutions are still being charged with
a model from the mid-90s, when wholesale rates are being charged at -per megabit-
charging.

For some reason, those at AARNet who i've spoken to in the past haven't the
foggiest clue why the majority of their traffic is off-net and why their
international pipes sit empty. Your charging model is doing this, guys.
Noone wants to use the "internet" in general because they can't tell whether
its off net or on-net; and if something gets screwed up it'll cost $18 an
equivalent DVD ISO image download.

Fix your charging model and you'll see internet usage pick up quick smart.
A half-full megabit pipe can do 140-odd gigabytes a month at $350; your $7
a gigabyte charge at 140 odd gigabytes is almost $1000.

Want to start a revolution? Kick AARNet in the teeth over and over again until
they bring their charging model on par with the way bandwidth is sold in the
real world; and let individual universities figure out the best way to use
the available pipe size. Seeing students and teachers go -home- to use the
internet to do anything terribly complicated is plain silly. Byte charging
individual users is plain silly. The fact Universities are paying 3x to 4x
what they could get by purchasing a commodity wholesale internet pipe is
not only plain silly, but I'd almost label -criminal-.



Adrian, sick of having overseas students asking him why the internet
is so expensive in Australia - he's had to stop saying "because you're
in Australia" and start saying "because you're at university - get ADSL
at home and do your downloading there."