B
Bullshit
Guest
The end of buffet-style broadband?
By Chua Hian Hou
THEY'RE called bandwidth hogs and they have had pretty much a free ride here when it comes to using the internet for anything from downloading films to running home security systems.
Their monthly fees are no different from many average users who use the same connection to check their email and surfing the Web.
But while the hogs are using ever more bandwidth as ever more complex functions go online, Internet service providers (ISPs) are struggling with growing bandwidth costs because of their insatiable appetites.
It has raised the prospect of charging these 'power users' more. Such metered charging is already in force overseas and ISPs here including SingNet, StarHub, and Pacific Internet say they are also looking at this, also there are no plans to implement this here.
StarHub spokesman Cassie Fong said it is 'closely tracking the development in this area as well as monitoring the interest level in metered charging from local users'.
The ISPs declined to give details but the Straits Times understands that, like their overseas counterparts, a tiny percentage of customers use huge chunks of bandwidth.
A Singapore ISP executive who declined to be named said the problem is that no amount of bandwidth will satisfy these increasingly unprofitable power users.
By Chua Hian Hou
THEY'RE called bandwidth hogs and they have had pretty much a free ride here when it comes to using the internet for anything from downloading films to running home security systems.
Their monthly fees are no different from many average users who use the same connection to check their email and surfing the Web.
But while the hogs are using ever more bandwidth as ever more complex functions go online, Internet service providers (ISPs) are struggling with growing bandwidth costs because of their insatiable appetites.
It has raised the prospect of charging these 'power users' more. Such metered charging is already in force overseas and ISPs here including SingNet, StarHub, and Pacific Internet say they are also looking at this, also there are no plans to implement this here.
StarHub spokesman Cassie Fong said it is 'closely tracking the development in this area as well as monitoring the interest level in metered charging from local users'.
The ISPs declined to give details but the Straits Times understands that, like their overseas counterparts, a tiny percentage of customers use huge chunks of bandwidth.
A Singapore ISP executive who declined to be named said the problem is that no amount of bandwidth will satisfy these increasingly unprofitable power users.