Whats the role of an ISP in an uncapped world

[Telkomhater]

If all our dreams come true and our wishes are granted sometime in the future, and caps are abolished, what exactly is the role of an ISP?

Is it purely for for authentication? What exactly would the 'product' be that an ISP would sell in an uncapped world?

In my mind ISP's are merely resellers of bandwidth (gigs). Is it not also correct then to say that the last thing ISP's want is uncapped, unrestricted access to the internet?

Surely their profits would plummet. I mean if they make say R5 per gig and they sell say 1000 gigs a month, then their profit is R5000. But if we all have unrestricted bandwidth, they could only charge each user a set amount to access the net.

 

[moklet]

Works like that in the rest of the world. I think you start p(r)aying for service and support.

 

[Paul_S]

In my mind ISP's are merely resellers of bandwidth (gigs). Is it not also correct then to say that the last thing ISP's want is uncapped, unrestricted access to the internet?

E-mail servers, web hosting, VPN solutions, etc. - there's plenty that they provide over and above basic connectivity.

Surely their profits would plummet. I mean if they make say R5 per gig and they sell say 1000 gigs a month, then their profit is R5000. But if we all have unrestricted bandwidth, they could only charge each user a set amount to access the net.

In my opinion cheap uncapped international access will never happen in SA and the reason I think that is because a lot of ISPs in first world countries are going from uncapped to capped.
Even countries like Austria have ISPs with 3GiB capped accounts.
All we can hope for is a more decent cap like 10+ GiB/month and lower prices (especially lower line rentals).
Hopefully we'll get uncapped local again.

 

[eremos]

Yeah, service and support .. and potentially price.

SA's situation is pretty unique, where we have ISPs reselling bandwidth and handling authentication.

In the UK before deregulation there was only BT, but after deregulation and LLU everybody and his mom were rushing to provide ADSL, running over BT's infrastructure initially, but utilising LLU as they built their own networks into new areas.

 

[eremos]

E-mail servers, web hosting, VPN solutions, etc. - there's plenty that they provide over and above basic connectivity.

In my opinion cheap uncapped international access will never happen in SA and the reason I think that is because a lot of ISPs in first world countries are going from uncapped to capped.
Even countries like Austria have ISPs with 3GiB capped accounts.
All we can hope for is a more decent cap like 10+ GiB/month and lower prices (especially lower line rentals).
Hopefully we'll get uncapped local again.

I think the time for ISPs is going away. In the old days very few people had a connection and everything was wired, so ISPs were the only way to go. They're becoming a bit archaic now though, and I think wireless mesh networks could take off in a big way.

Interconnections between cities could be handled by governments, and either agreements between countries or a choice of international bandwidth providers could give you access to the rest of the world.

Just my vision for the future.