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	<title>Local Loop &#187; pricing</title>
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	<link>http://localloop.co.za</link>
	<description>Internet and Networking in South Africa</description>
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		<title>Because you asked #1: Pricing transit costs in South Africa</title>
		<link>http://localloop.co.za/2010/01/because-you-asked-1-pricing-transit-costs-in-south-africa/</link>
		<comments>http://localloop.co.za/2010/01/because-you-asked-1-pricing-transit-costs-in-south-africa/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:13:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Simeon Miteff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[because you asked]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pricing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://localloop.co.za/?p=336</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Someone did a Google search for &#8220;how to price ip transit costs south africa&#8221;, and ended in my apache logs when they followed the search result to this site. Having never worked in the ISP industry, I&#8217;m not really qualified to answer, but here goes anyway: If you have this much bandwidth: &#8230;then do this: [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Someone did a Google search for <em><strong>&#8220;how to price ip transit costs south africa&#8221;</strong></em>, and ended in my apache logs when they followed the search result to this site.</p>
<p>Having never worked in the ISP industry, I&#8217;m not really qualified to answer, but here goes anyway:</p>
<p>If you have this much bandwidth:</p>
<div id="attachment_481" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 683px"><a href="http://localloop.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/jinx.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-481" title="jinx" src="http://localloop.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/jinx.png" alt="ZA can has traffic?" width="673" height="240" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">ZA can has traffic?</p></div>
<p>&#8230;then do this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Randomly choose a price thats so expensive that it&#8217;s economically infeasible for your customers, then dial it back until you have ~100 reluctant customers.</li>
<li>Bill for transit by traffic volume in giga-bytes, call this a &#8220;quota&#8221;.</li>
<li>Hard-cap the &#8220;quota&#8221; so that the customer would exhaust it on the first day of month.</li>
<li>Expire (steal) the customer&#8217;s unused quota at the end of the month.</li>
<li>Oversubscribe like a lunatic, and then be vague about this to your customers.</li>
<li>Redefine &#8220;Internet access&#8221; to exclude certain popular protocols, and then buy a router that forwards those specific packets slower, or not at all.</li>
</ol>
<p>If, on the other hand, you have this kind of bandwidth:</p>
<div id="attachment_484" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 707px"><a href="http://localloop.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/amsix.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-484 " title="amsix" src="http://localloop.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/amsix.png" alt="The big boys." width="697" height="315" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">MOAR please.</p></div>
<p>&#8230;then do this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Bill customers monthly for a 5-minute average traffic rate (Mbps).</li>
<li>Offer a variable per-Mbps discount if they commit to a minimum rate, and allow them to set the rate (to zero, if they like).</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t fine them for traffic spikes, instead, discard the top 5% or 10% of the 5-minute averages each month.</li>
</ol>
<p>Here is the thing though, aren&#8217;t the graphs symptoms, and not causes of the pricing strategy?</p>
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