10 Ideas for Broadband Billing

Customers can choose how much bandwidth they expect to use and the price tier they are comfortable paying.

All-you-can-eat — to a point. Requires a tool to let customers manage usage and give warnings when levels are close to being reached. Also includes the opportunity to buy additional bandwidth when needed.

Like a cellular minutes rollover, how about crediting customers when they come in below their usage agreements, minimizing usage?

Customers gain access to more bandwidth on an as-needed-basis — useful for one-time downloads or occasional requirements.

Price bandwidth reservations into specific applications, such as video-on-demand, carrier-provided or third-party VoIP, or online gaming.

Charges for broadband are subsidized by other parties: advertisers, third-party VoIP operators, over-the-top Web content providers.

Users gain access to bandwidth — or more bandwidth — in exchange for viewing advertising or sharing profile information.

Consumption is managed by giving a responsible party — parent, corporate IT department — control via preset usage and spending limits. Alerting and notifications leads to self-management of consumption.

Set prices and policies to encourage off-peak usage, such as overnight delivery of cached video.

There's almost always a price at which unlimited access makes economic sense for carriers, aided by the fact that some unlimited customers will under-consume significantly, subsidizing biggest consumers.