The idea of Metered Cable Rates Considered...

There has been some discussion of metered cable rates in the blogosphere the the past two weeks.  The business model of metered rates in the cable industry might not provide the profits that Wall St. demands, but what if metered rates were used on top of standard rates. Rather than have a data cap why not charge more per Gig over the cap? One of the biggest gripes of the cable industry today are the data caps. The cable company in their arrogance deem it their prerogative to cut people off from their service if they should go over the data caps. But the consumer would be willing to pay more if they went over their data caps without the threat of having their service cut. Not only consumers but companies such as Netflix would welcome the idea of metered rates over the caps as opposed to loosing consumers.  For all the consumers that would go over the data caps the cable industry could invest the new source of funds in RD to find ways to double the data rates over the backbone. The best way would be a software solution. Though with recent technologies that could improve the the router backbone, the price of the tech could come down. I can hear the howls of anger from the cable companies now. Their response to this article would be something like “we just spent two billion dollarsin the last three years upgrading the cable infrastructure in this country.” They could go on and say, "that they also have to deal with retransmission fee’s that companies like Netflix don’t have to ask the consumer to pay." I would counter that by saying that they need to do a better job of educating the consumer as to why the cable rates are the way they are. I would agree that the cable companies are in a difficult spot when it comes to making money with the current flux of their market models, as well as the rapid advances in tech. But I would counter their arguments further, and say that as industry you need to do a better job of marketing your products, and services to consumers . Rather than act in an arrogant manner which is the perception of some in their industry, not to mention terrible service. Rule number 1 in any business that services customers is to make them happy. The cable companies need to work to make the general public better educated about the costs that they face,and to work harder to make the consumer happy with their cable provider. So while metered rates are not a lone solution to the challenges that the cable industry faces. Metered rates would be like an olive branch between consumer and service provider.

Those are my Two Bits take them for what they are worth.....................................
Eric