🚀 go-pugleaf

engineer2 <engineer2@the.lab> writes:
>On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:25:40 +0000, Chris Caputo wrote:
>> Taking into account our lower retention, if we offered $12/month
>> unthrottled, with SSL and 10 streams, would that be reasonable?
>
>I've noticed that the number of simultaneous connections (streams?)
>seems to be important to people, but I've never understood the reason.

I imagine the reasons vary.

With multiple connections you can download binaries in one group while 
browsing text messages in another, for example.

>Does each one of your simultaneous connections add another increment
>of throttled bandwidth?  Other than that, I can't see any advantage.

On our throttled connections, although our terms indicate that bandwidth 
is distributed across parallel connections, I haven't found it necessary 
to actually implement that and enforce it.  Therefore, on our throttled 
offerings, multiple connections will actually increase overall throughput.

In general, with TCP performance testing, I find that a single unthrottled 
stream is best able to utilize available bandwidth.  Others may disagree 
or have more scientific input.

>In another post you mentioned plans for usage-based accounts. By that
>do you mean non-expiring blocks?  ATM that's the only kind of account
>that I would consider with any NSP.

I used to think that usage-based was a good direction but now with the 
growth of flat-rate unlimited accounts, I'm not so sure.  The accounting 
is certainly simpler when flat-rate.

Non-expiring blocks seems unattractive, from the standpoint of a provider 
(this one at least!), since it implies an ongoing liability to a customer 
who is no longer paying money regularly.  I've wondered if non-expiring in 
combination with a minimum monthly usage would sell, so that eventually 
over at least years, the balance would drain.

The idea that someone could buy a 10 gig block in 2008 and still be 
occasionally using it in 2013, for example, seems odd to me.

>I've read that even ISP's are considering usage-based accounts (to
>penalize you binaries junkies who download 24/7 from unthrottled
>NSP's ;-)

Some ISP's are rumored to be heading in that direction, no doubt.

ISP's frequently buy from backbones using a 95th percentile method of 
billing, so bringing usage billing down to the consumer may be tempting 
for some business models.

Chris Caputo
President, Altopia Corporation