Manhattanites cluster around free wifi. (Iam Lamb)

Late Monday night, you probably saw friends south of Flatiron fall off the grid and not resurface until answering your panicked text messages Tuesday morning from somewhere uptown.

That's because, thanks to Sandy, cell service downtown is--not to put too fine a point on it--totally fucked. You might be getting patches of service, but it's likely an exercise in massive frustration. Don't hold your breath on it getting fixed right away, either, says the FCC.

During a conference call yesterday, CNET reports, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski revealed that 25 percent of the nation's cell sites were out of commission, in a 10-state swath from Virginia to Massachusetts. They're underwater, or out of power, or just plain busted. Most of the outages are concentrated in the areas where the storm damage was worst. That's as of 10 a.m. yesterday morning.

Mr. Genachowski also added that:

"And our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile networks, because of the flooding and loss of power."

So even if you've got service now, that doesn't mean you can count on keeping it. That's because many of the cell sites in affected areas that still work are now running on backup power, and the timeline for restoration of electricity isn't looking promising, either. Lower Manhattan, for example, might go for four days without power, long enough to exhaust battery power.

Landline outages were reportedly less extensive, though we can't help but wonder if that's because hardly anyone south of 14th has a landline any more.

Misty, water-colored memories. (via geekosystem)

Sometime in the mid-nineties, my dad got an AOL account. Roughly two seconds after that, I fell down the rabbit hole of anonymous chat rooms and never quite got out--that is when I wasn't getting the deadly, dreaded dial-up busy signal. AOL charged by the hour back then. Until the service switched to a flat monthly rate in October, 1996, the clock was always ticking, forcing you to make the Sophie's Choice of where to spend your time online.

Now it seems the industry is heading back in that direction. Not by-the-hour, mind you, but a usage-based pricing model that would prompt viewers to consider whether, say, spending the weekend watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix is really worth it. (Answer: Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.)

Last week, Comcast began testing a usage-based pricing model and at the cable industry trade show in Boston yesterday, Julius Genachowski, chairman of Federal Communications Commission expressed support for the notion.

Mr. Genachowski said tiered pricing, will "increase consumer choice and competition" and yield in "lower prices for people who consume less broadband." Although, as  Electronista notes, "he did not clarify what mechanism would drive prices down."

Public interest groups have decried the potential impact broadband data caps will have on the market and innovation, not to mention the biases baked in the plans. Comcast, for example, counts Netflix video into its data plan, but lets its own XFinity service stream away.

As the Washington Post reports, Mr. Genachowski "didn't appear to feel the same outrage," as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings over it.

“Business model innovation is very important,” Genachowski said. “There was a point of view a couple years ago that there was only one permissible pricing model for broadband. I didn’t agree.”

For our feature in this week's paper about Aereo, the startup that lets you live-stream broadcast TV, Betabeat discussed broadband data caps with IAC chairman and Aereo investor Barry Diller. (Mr. Genachowski served in senior executive positions at IAC for eight years under Mr. Diller.)

Mr. Diller, who recently testified before Congress in favor of net neutrality, reiterated his support for usage-based pricing.

"I’m a big proselytizer for net neutrality," Mr. Diller told Betabeat earlier this week. "We have the miracle of the Internet where you can press a button to send and essentially publish to the world, without anybody between you sending that publishing and anyone who receives it. That really is a miracle of communications and it’s worth protecting."

However, he clarified, "That should not be confused with my belief that anyone who sells bandwidth should be able to sell it on a usage basis, just like electricity and I think that is absolutely appropriate and I’ve advocated that for a long time."