I have occasionally used price per Mb stats myself, but there's something very artificial in this measure in that its investment function isn't linear.
In other words, the cost difference in producing 2, 8 or 20 theoretical Mb/s download is marginal if not non existent. As a consequence, telcos have strived to offer more for the same price in the last few years.
So price per Mb/s only tells us that the margins for broadband bundles are diminishing and that telcos used to really screw us a few years ago, but it doesn't really tell us that we pay any less for effectively the same product (since the need for speed increased at the same time...)
This is true - but it also tells us that now broadband competition is working, and no doubt Americans would be delighted to have such a curve (even though FiOS/Uverse would warp it). We might charitably say that it shows that LLU was the path to take? I suspect the Japanese graph would be more dramatic, though.
I have occasionally used price per Mb stats myself, but there's something very artificial in this measure in that its investment function isn't linear.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the cost difference in producing 2, 8 or 20 theoretical Mb/s download is marginal if not non existent. As a consequence, telcos have strived to offer more for the same price in the last few years.
So price per Mb/s only tells us that the margins for broadband bundles are diminishing and that telcos used to really screw us a few years ago, but it doesn't really tell us that we pay any less for effectively the same product (since the need for speed increased at the same time...)
This is true - but it also tells us that now broadband competition is working, and no doubt Americans would be delighted to have such a curve (even though FiOS/Uverse would warp it). We might charitably say that it shows that LLU was the path to take? I suspect the Japanese graph would be more dramatic, though.
ReplyDelete