Signing up for a slower broadband connection
A "lite" version of broadband is probably coming to a provider near you according to this AP story.
Tiered broadband may also be a response to a glut of unused network capacity.
"What these providers are discovering is that they all spent a decent amount of money to build out their backbones. They have a good amount of capacity and a lot of it is not being utilized," said Mr. Kersey at ARS. "Covad's got this great backbone, and only about 350,000 people using it, so why not persuade people to switch from dial-up?"
But ideally, for players both big and small, any entry-level tier of service will serve as a stepping stone to higher-revenue plans.
According to Messrs. Golvin and Kersey, once people convert to broadband, getting them to pay $10 more for faster service is easier than getting them to initially switch from dial-up, which often entails hassles such as installation and e-mail address changes.