Framingham Firm's Technology Enables Metered Internet Model
ABN's Adam Dunstan: "It's an inevitable evolution. It lets them build pricing plans that leverage the capability of their assets."
If you've become accustomed to streaming high-definition movies on your computer, you might not like the technology Active Broadband Networks has developed.
The Framingham-based company has built a software platform that could help lead to a shift in the way broadband providers charge consumers for Internet.
The platform interacts with broadband providers' computer systems to collect, process and store information on how many megabytes of data are moving through a user's cable modem. The system also provides a front-end interaction with end users to tell them how much data they've consumed, and enables them to purchase more data for when they exceed their allotment.
It's the sort of thing that could lead not only to pay-per-use broadband service, but also to pre-paid Internet, like cell phones in the wireless market.
The company, which is headquartered on Speen Street and has 25 employees, counts 10 major wireline broadband providers in North America, Europe and Central America as customers.
Its CEO, Adam Dunstan, is banking on that number climbing, and soon.
"It's an inevitable evolution," said Dunstan, who founded Active Broadband Networks (ABN) in 2005. "It lets them build pricing plans that leverage the capability of their assets."
Metered broadband is still a relatively young industry, said Brian Dietz, spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
The industry argues that it's a matter of fairness. Those using huge amounts of data and paying the same price as more regular users are taking up more network resources, and pay the same rate.
"Really it's about ensuring that the heaviest users pay for the amount of bandwidth they're using," Dietz said. "It's about monetizing the broadband asset the companies have invested hundreds of billions to deploy and billions more annually to upgrade."
Critics have charged that cable companies are trying to protect their streaming media business lines against competitors like Netflix.
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into whether cable companies are acting improperly in that regard, The Wall Street Journal reported in June.
Dietz noted that Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, voiced support in May for metered Internet pricing at the NCTA's 2012 conference in Boston.
So while there may not be regulatory hurdles standing in the way, cable companies are moving cautiously in testing the metering systems.
"It's a mountain of data to manage," Dunstan said.
The Internet wasn't built with data monitoring in mind, said Peter Sevcik, owner of NetForecast, a Virginia-based engineering consulting firm that analyzes performance and traffic on service providers' networks. Sevcik audited Comcast's meter in 2010, which was enabled by ABN's platform.
"All of the underlying technologies of the Internet are not designed to count and to count with any of the fine granularity that's required," Sevcik said.
But metering systems are getting more advanced.
Telling customers how much data they're consuming is one thing. But telling them exactly what applications or websites they were using when they consumed it is another.
Stephen Collins, ABN's vice president of product marketing and business development, said Internet users may be uncomfortable with their activity being tracked to such a detailed degree.
But the company hopes there are other opportunities, as well.
ABN's products put it squarely in the wireline broadband space, where Dunstan estimates the company has 30-percent market share.
But it also hopes to adapt its technology for wireless providers. Broadband providers are installing public Wi-Fi in populated areas where mobile networks are strained by heavy traffic.
The networks help offload some of that traffic to wireline connections. Dunstan sees opportunity for ABN's software in that space.
Customers, meanwhile, are used to paying a flat rate for an Internet connection based on speed. Depending on the pricing, some may have to pay more for the same services they have now. And they may not be happy about it.
But Dunstan said consumers need to understand what they're getting for the money they pay.
Big data users — whether gamers or movie streamers — consume hundreds of gigabytes, all while paying the same price as someone who uses their connection for online shoe shopping.
"The biggest customer in this business is the worst customer," Dunstan said. "It's unlike any other business."
Correction: A sentence in this story originally included an incorrect name for the company, which is called Active Broadband Networks.
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