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if we got to choose between an ISP that provides unmetered TV.movies… and one that meters it… which is the better choice…?

just noticed the concept of couch-potato-content, in a comment about Internode’s new… or coming… Tivo deal… which seems to promise unmetered tv/movies for Tivo content…

actually, i think it might pay to go with an ISP – like South East Qld. Telco – that offer entirely unlimited content…

rather than one that makes couch-potato-content (i like that term) cheaper than more seriously useful, innovative or informing stuff that the Internet has to offer…

- analogy

would you take your kids to a restaurant, that had a free (unmetered) desert bar?

would you take them to such a place, if the desert bar was free – even if you were the only one who had to pay for a meal, to open the desert bar to all your kids?

would you take them to that place every day?

- the connection

well… we think the Internode Tivo deal works the same way.

so… we’re here to suggest folks consider demanding ISPs provide unlimited access to any & all legal content that the Internet has to offer, ie, veggies & desert alike.

we don’t want an Internet plan with a ‘couch-potato-content’ cost-advantage

- choosing an ISP

Comparing Internode’s (coming) free couch-potato-content plans…
to, say, S E Qld Telco’s (existing) unlimited $99 / mon ADSL plans…

well… we’d choose the ‘all-you-can-eat’ plan, that lets us choose veggies without a price-bias in favor of a ‘couch-potato’ desert bar…

what would you choose, if our ISPs offered unlimited Internet plans?

if you think AU would be better served with unlimited Internet plans, let our ISPs know (eg, below, and maybe via your MP, et al.)

ps there’s a poll on this in Whirlpool.net.au’s Chosing an ISP forum (while it lasts… moderators sometimes protect sponsoring ISPs or favored ISPs at whirlpool)

The answer is to massively drop the price of wholesale bandwidth in Oz, by changes in regulation and/or new competition in the wholesale market, to make the market conditions here more like those in the European markets you cite.

while more creative places, eg, France and others somehow find it makes more sense for their ISPs to offer UNLIMITED Internet plans for ALL content.

It may be that the limiting concept of “METERED” Internet plans comes from our monopolistic Telstra, which was an early pusher of CAPPED Internet plans to the unknowing Australian.

But that does not absolve Internode and other ISPs from their ethical responsibility (eg, based on the Triple Bottom Line business model) to open ALL content to UNLIMITED flow…

so that Australians aren’t ENCOURAGED by the proposed UNMETERED “Couch-Potato-Content” pricing models to dive further into consuming colorful content, at the expense of creativity that might drive them PRODUCING new content, including inventions, business models, medical solutions, etc.

PS: I’m surprised that the gov’t-pushed “FILTERING” wasn’t asked about or listed as an issue affecting Internode.

Does Simon consider that gap in coverage to be “politically correct”…?

Or does the Rudd gov’t take open discussion of the filtering issue as a ground for reducing an ISP’s chances of winning favorable decisions in other areas, some of which did get mentioned…?

what i’d like to know though, is whether Internode’s 3G service via Optus will be any faster than “Pure Optus 3G”. currently Optus 3G coverage & data speeds is a sick joke, so unless the majority of the speed bottleneck is further upstream than the cell-tower network (& thus avoided by using Internode as backhaul), it just isn’t worth it. And you’d still have the appalling coverage issues .