I don't think so, and I've been watching the discussion carefully. I did see
one foreign poster who described the price structure he has to cope with in two
mutually-contradictory ways; once as charge-per-byte and once as connect-time
charges. It seemed clear in context that the second description was correct
and that the poster was terminologically confused. I am open to correction
on this issue, but confident.
I stand by my previous assertion. Charge-per-byte has never been a viable ISP
price structure, is not now viable, and never will be viable. There are two
reasons for this, either sufficient to kill it. (1) The accounting overhead
is so high, in resources and complexity, that it's a net loss to try, and (2)
anyone who attempts charge-by-byte pricing will have his lunch eaten by ISPs
with connect-time-based pricing structures (and this is so predictable to
anyone with the slightest grasp of economics or marketing that no one will
ever make the experiment unless they're something like a European postal
-telecomms monopoly that can lock out private-sector competitors).
In fact, I make the following much stronger prediction. Connect-time pricing
will be displaced by monthly-flat-rate pricing as soon as the cable companies
get seriously into the ISP business. Sometime between eighteen months to
three years from now, `retail' ISPs will find that they must either go flat-
rate, at monthly rates comparable to present local phone or cable service,
or else go bust.
Free markets. Ya gotta love 'em.
-- Eric S. Raymond <esr@locke.ccil.org> WWW: //www.thyrsus.com/~esr/home.html
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