Comment Articles

If the download cap fits...

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 12 Feb 2003 17:42 GMT

Whoever said "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" never met a geek deprived of their inalienable right to infinite free data. Ask NTL, whose move to restrict their broadband users to a gigabyte of downloading a day has produced more spleen than an abdominal surgeon sees in a lifetime. To be fair, NTL did it all wrong -- they sneaked the change in without properly telling anyone, they blustered and bumbled when caught out, and then said that they didn't mind unless you were being really silly.

But the reaction of the users was splendid. Huge Web pages, dripping more invective than you'll find on a Bin Laden media training course, sprang up almost instantly. Strikes were called, boycotts proposed, newsgroups filled up with outrage: you'd be forgiven for thinking that imminent war, exploding spacecraft, plague, famine and pestilence were party games compared with this final Horseman of the Digital Apocalypse.

What this proves is that naivety exists on both sides of the commercial fence. It's hard to credit NTL with the stupidity that informed the initial non-announcement, but equally difficult to believe that the users expect leased-line guarantees for a fraction of the commercial price for such things. Simple maths proves the impossibility of this: 100 1-megabit users maxing out their lines will require a dedicated 100-megabit backbone and will bring in £3,500 a month. That won't pay for the raw bandwidth, let alone the business of supplying the modems, connection and support while running a company. Anyone who thinks otherwise is welcome to make the business case and revolutionise the industry.

So, what was NTL doing selling such a service? Like any company, it assumes that most people won't use all of what they buy. No airline could survive assuming that everyone who books a seat actually turns up: it's the Coleman's Mustard principle, that you make your profit on the stuff the customer leaves in the pot. But broadband is a new and unknown market, and NTL had to pitch its offering so that it looks attractive and competitive but leaves enough wiggle room for the company to adjust its service in the light of what people actually do. What some people actually do, it transpires, is get really keen on amassing gigabytes of stuff. Movies, music, ripped-off software -- far more than any sane person could possibly actually consume -- these are the honeypots of broadband.