[ NNSquad ] Re: Electrical Analogy for Peak-Demand Pricing

[PK <djc@resiak.org>]

Where I live in rural France, EDF offers home electrical service 
differentiated along two dimensions: peak usage and usage management.

The "peak usage" dimension is simple: you pay a higher subscription base 
for an installation allowing higher amperage.

"Usage management" gives three different usage plans.

Under one plan you pay a flat rate per KWh.

Under another plan, you pay one rate for usage at the higher-use periods 
07:00-12:00 and 14:30-00:30, and a lower rate for the off-periods 
12:00-14:30 and 00:30-07:00.  (We, for instance, run our water heater and 
dishwasher overnight.)

Under the final type you pay one rate most of the time, but on certain 
entire days chosen by EDF -- and announced a few days beforehand -- you pay 
a much higher rate.

I offer these to add to the analogical pool of thinking about consumer 
network pricing.  Here (rural France) our bandwidth is limited, and I'm 
patient enough to postpone any bandwidth-heavier usage until I've done the 
much more important things like e-mail and viewing xkcd and NNSquad -- such 
as letting a big file transfer run at night when it doesn't compete with 
daytime use.  If my ISP, France Telecom, offered different transparent, 
open, and usable pricing plans that matched our idea of how to use the net 
for our purposes, I'd consider that sensible.

We're not demanding realtime HD television, though.

Pete