Those posts attracted some attention and soon afterward I was asked by Netflix if I was interested in digging deeper into these issues. The company provided some support so that I was able to quickly assemble a great team of students – Keith Rose, Peter Waldkirch, Tyler Nechiporenko, and Rachel Gold – to delve into issues such as congestion claims, comparative UBB approaches, the cost of transferring a GB of data, and some potential solutions. I completed the paper over the weekend and have posted it here. I’ll be posting on several elements over the next few days, concluding with my proposal for the establishment of a UBB equivalent for Internet Traffic Management Practices (ITMPs), which I’ve dubbed Internet Billing Usage Management Practices or IBUMPs.
This first post features a comparative look at usage based billing in other countries.