COMMENTARY: A way out for usage-based billing

By Mark Goldberg

IT IS UNLIKELY THAT WE will see the elimination of usage sensitive pricing for the aggregated wholesale services that many internet services providers use to reach their customers (as I mentioned yesterday afternoon)Usage is an efficient and fair cost allocation system for shared resources, as suggested in the National Post.However, the currently mandated approach of applying charges on a per-user basis may need to give way to some form of aggregation in order to provide ISPs with sufficient flexibility to offer consumer increased choice among price plans.A number of times, I have referred to the all-you-can-eat buffet metaphor. The local...