babum wroteyou say that politics play a part, but if you tell me that you have harsh competition then you also have to assume that this is an open market with no or little restrictions to enter, so what is the difference? now if politics act in and there is no perfect competition then this harsh competition you are talking about will never happen.
By harsh competition I meant barriers to entry and was not suggesting that there are numerous ISPs competing. A lot of ISPs/mobile carriers own their own network (i.e. it's not government owned) therefore an already established company has a major advantage over a new company that is going to open (especially if this new company doesn't have the capital to compete). A positive example of politics interfering in the market is the government not allowing AT&T to be bought by a competing company (I can't remember the company's name). Another example is a european government (again I don't know specifics because I just read the article casually) was thinking about forcing a well established ISP to allow competing ISPs to use its network -of course in exchange for a price.
babum wroteI find it funny you say its not my opinion when you say : I've reached this conclusion from numerous articles that I've happened to read.
You're right, I should have rephrased what I've said. What I meant to say is that I'm trying to present facts from articles that I've read as objectively as possible. Saying I reached a conclusion implies some sort of an opinion therefore you're right about my phrase needing to be changed.
On a side note my comment about "coming out of an econ class" sounds harsh after rereading it, I apologize I didn't mean it that way.
xazbrat wroteIn any case, the business model is sustainable as long as there is available bandwidth and a deterrent to theft/abuse.
This is the whole sentence you posted. In the next part you talked about Lebanon's specific case. I replied to your statement that the business model is sustainable. In no way whatsoever did I alter the meaning of what you said by the way I quoted it.
The reason you and I are disagreeing is that you're thinking about the short term while I'm thinking about the long term. Yes offering unlimited plans now won't be a problem if they have the resources. But lower prices will mean more market penetration, slowly the demand will increase and in the end they will be in the same situation as ISPs abroad.
Numerous cases of ISPs throttling P2P and torrent protocols have spread in the news. A bill calling for net neutrality (google the term if you're interested) have been sent to congress for this reason among others. I think it passed but I'm not sure.
The main point is that some ISPs that have passed the stage we are in long ago, reached the conclusion that unlimited plans don't work so we should learn from them.
And logically they are right, people need to learn to estimate how much bandwidth they need and subscribe to the relevant package. It's better for the end-user and the ISPs.
The most logical request we need to ask for is cheap bandwidth and let every one buy the quantity they need.
