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The Napster Saga:
To Meter or Not to Meter?

New, freely available programs for scooping up music, program, and other files using Internet pipes raise many thorny issues. In this and two articles to follow, members of ISP-Tech consider several points.

[April 26, 2000]

On ISP-Tech in April 2000, WW kicked off a lengthy discussion by posting a link to a news story about a San Diego ISP banning Napster:

The headline: 'San Diego ISP bans Napster, threatens accounts even though the threatened users had not exceeded bandwidth limits'. "

WW's comment: "Can we say 'bad PR'?"

[Ed. Note: Napster allows online users to exchange MP3 music files using its software. The company has been involved in other controversies: The Recording Institute Association of America (RIAA) has filed a suit against Napster, accusing it of allowing users to make unauthorized copies of music belonging to RIAA artists. The software has come under fire also because its use substantially increases network bandwidth consumption. See our story: The Napster Nightmare.]

Indeed, the bandwidth-usage issue rose to the surface immediately:

[R pointed out the obvious] "This is probably in reaction to bandwidth being sucked out of their system, slowing the whole network down during the busiest times of the night."

[CFB proposed a clever countermove] "Smart ISPs will leverage Napster users and their default settings to good advantage with dynamic bandwidth limiting down to 8kbps for any IPs trying to resolve to napster.com."

[AB took a longer-term view] "The average cost of bandwidth per user is going up with the rollout of broadband. Which means that more expensive bandwidth has to be provisioned to the upstream. When users get the newest application, like Napster, they start to use more bandwidth. I know that large networks use large cache farms, but how much of this kind of bandwidth can be cached? Seems like the only fair way is to sell metered bandwidth."

A number of respondents took up the cry about bandwidth metering:

[MS wrote] "This is a great time to sell unlimited access. No bandwidth throttling but charge per megabit. You and your customers get the best of both worlds this way!"

[JM wrote] "I agree. Let each individual pay for what s/he uses. Why should everyone have to subsidize 'Joe Bandwidth Hog' when the average user uses so little? The early proponents of 'unlimited' have screwed that fairness concept for ever."

There were dissenting opinions—of course:

[WW argued] "By the time you average it out, the high bandwidth user is more than accounted for by users who are primarily using email or instant messenger programs. And those high bandwidth users are also consistently the ones who will refer others to your service, thus giving you more lower bandwidth users to balance them out. But if you cancel the high bandwidth user, he'll really bad-mouth you to others and, many times, find an ISP who doesn't hassle him. And he'll take a sizable portion of those referrals he sent you to the new provider."

[MS flatly contradicted this] "I get 10 new customers for every 'power' user (I call them 'abusers') I rein in. The average user knows why his service sucks, and when I tell them that I don't allow camping etc. they love the idea. When they find out it's true, they tell all thier friends!"

[AB steered a middle course] "My point is I want to sell bandwidth. I'm in the business of bandwidth management. I love power users, and I expect them to pay for the bandwidth that they use. The converse is the more 'email and chat' users I find, the more bandwidth I sell -- based on a price they and I can afford. It's kind of like insurance: The insurance companies want customers who pay their bill and don't make claims."

—End