Charter cable to place caps on usage

[DaveJ]

Originally posted by: mundane
Between the cap, shitty customer service, inconsistent connection quality, and FIOS becoming available my choice is obvious.

Edit: Not to mention their looming bankruptcy - I don't know if that would interrupt my service.

I had @home cable Internet before it went bankrupt and got bought out by Charter. My service was not interrupted at all, although they did eventually get rid of the plan I was originally on (1.5mbit down, the best you could get with Charter at the time was 1mbit down). My rates went up as well, which was annoying.

 

[Feldenak]

Originally posted by: mundane
shitty customer service, inconsistent connection and spotty quality

Yeah, that sounds like my experiences with Charter.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: mundane
Between the cap, shitty customer service, inconsistent connection quality, and FIOS becoming available my choice is obvious.

Edit: Not to mention their looming bankruptcy - I don't know if that would interrupt my service.

From what I read they would likely be absorbed by someone like TW. Then the caps would drop even lower

 

[stag3]

why bother burying it, just run it window to window thru the air !

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: stag3
140 isn't bad for the unlimited, fios charges 180 i think for the 50/50 package
if it were cheaper i'd get it.

Get with a neighbor or two and split the cost, run a cat5 cable between the homes. Yeah, it is against the rules but I doubt they will dig up the yard between houses to check

you sure? I asked comcast if I could do this legally, and I am now sharing my 50mb connection with 12 units in my condo complex...I am not MAKING money on the deal, but I am getting dirt cheap 50mb connection, and these guys barely use the net anyway!

I guess it varies from place to place, but I know when I read the AUP it said it was to be used only for the address of service.
Still that doesn't mean you couldn't throw up a wireless connection that just happened to be open

 

[venkman]

what about uploading? That seems to cut your total quite a bit. Either people will stop uploading (which kills BT) or greatly reduce it (which kills DL speeds). With a lot of things going hi-def and internet access only, that 100 is going to look pretty small. I wonder how much bandwith I use from those 2 hour HD movies from Netflix?

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: venkman
what about uploading? That seems to cut your total quite a bit. Either people will stop uploading (which kills BT) or greatly reduce it (which kills DL speeds). With a lot of things going hi-def and internet access only, that 100 is going to look pretty small. I wonder how much bandwith I use from those 2 hour HD movies from Netflix?

Good question.
How do they cap uploads ? is it added to the downloads ?

A router running the Tomato firmware can keep track of usage.
That or a pfsense, clarkconnect, smoothwall box.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: stag3
140 isn't bad for the unlimited, fios charges 180 i think for the 50/50 package
if it were cheaper i'd get it.

Get with a neighbor or two and split the cost, run a cat5 cable between the homes. Yeah, it is against the rules but I doubt they will dig up the yard between houses to check

you sure? I asked comcast if I could do this legally, and I am now sharing my 50mb connection with 12 units in my condo complex...I am not MAKING money on the deal, but I am getting dirt cheap 50mb connection, and these guys barely use the net anyway!

I guess it varies from place to place, but I know when I read the AUP it said it was to be used only for the address of service.
Still that doesn't mean you couldn't throw up a wireless connection that just happened to be open

well, it's encrypted....I just gave out the key ...I mean, they stole it!

 

[Canai]

FUCK.

and I just deleted my steam folder in preparation for a reformat - including my newly purchased GTA4...

And I need to redownload the Vista iso from MSDN.

And I watch streaming TV every night in addition to the h.264 high def podcasts I download daily.



Well, time to install a bandwidth usage monitor and see how quickly I'll be hitting the cap :|

edit: and 10meg is the fastest you can get here. It's $55 a month, and goes out daily. I got dropped from vent and 2142 servers every 30 mins or so last night, and that's par for the course.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Canai
FUCK.

and I just deleted my steam folder in preparation for a reformat - including my newly purchased GTA4...

And I need to redownload the Vista iso from MSDN.

And I watch streaming TV every night in addition to the h.264 high def podcasts I download daily.



Well, time to install a bandwidth usage monitor and see how quickly I'll be hitting the cap :|

edit: and 10meg is the fastest you can get here. It's $55 a month, and goes out daily. I got dropped from vent and 2142 servers every 30 mins or so last night, and that's par for the course.

I recommend this one:
http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/

Small and does the job.
I'm not capped but I installed it just to see what I actually use in a month.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Canai
FUCK.

and I just deleted my steam folder in preparation for a reformat - including my newly purchased GTA4...

And I need to redownload the Vista iso from MSDN.

And I watch streaming TV every night in addition to the h.264 high def podcasts I download daily.



Well, time to install a bandwidth usage monitor and see how quickly I'll be hitting the cap :|

edit: and 10meg is the fastest you can get here. It's $55 a month, and goes out daily. I got dropped from vent and 2142 servers every 30 mins or so last night, and that's par for the course.

I recommend this one:
http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/

Small and does the job.
I'm not capped but I installed it just to see what I actually use in a month.

Cool thank you. The tough bit will be remembering to have it running on my laptop at home, but not when I'm in or between classes.

edit: doesn't seem to work in Windows 7

 

[tk149]

If you use Netflix or Hulu to watch on demand, what is the maximum (highest-quality)download size of a 2 hour movie? Will this cap be a concern if I watch movies and play online games?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: CptCrunch
for the love of god... this is getting ridiculous

oh, and paging spidey

I told you guys it was coming.

 

[Gothgar]

fuck man....

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: CptCrunch
for the love of god... this is getting ridiculous

oh, and paging spidey

I told you guys it was coming.

100GB too...

 

[ZetaEpyon]

My day has been ruined.

 

[stag3]

they're doing everything they can to get rid of video on demand, to bad no matter what they do, technology is going to move forward

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: stag3
they're doing everything they can to get rid of video on demand, to bad no matter what they do, technology is going to move forward

They are just buying time till they can provide their own services that will compete with the likes of Netflix or other video on demand websites.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: tk149
If you use Netflix or Hulu to watch on demand, what is the maximum (highest-quality)download size of a 2 hour movie? Will this cap be a concern if I watch movies and play online games?

I just did a quick test with Hulu streaming this :
http://www.hulu.com/hd/48731

Not a bad show, going to finish watching it. Good if you like swords + wizards, etc.

Totals:

10 minutes HD streaming from HULU
___________________

Upload: 3.24 MB
Download: 150.10 MB
Upload + Download: 153.34 MB

153.34 x 6 = 920.04 MB / Hour

So a 2 hour movie would be about 1.8GB.

used netmeter, cool app, has logs, daily reports, projected usage, exporting of info, all for free and it only uses up 7MB of memory.



http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Canai
FUCK.

and I just deleted my steam folder in preparation for a reformat - including my newly purchased GTA4...

And I need to redownload the Vista iso from MSDN.

And I watch streaming TV every night in addition to the h.264 high def podcasts I download daily.



Well, time to install a bandwidth usage monitor and see how quickly I'll be hitting the cap :|

edit: and 10meg is the fastest you can get here. It's $55 a month, and goes out daily. I got dropped from vent and 2142 servers every 30 mins or so last night, and that's par for the course.

Always a good idea to back up Steam games to an external HDD or DVDs. There's really no reason to redownload them every time you do a format, it is kind of a waste of bandwidth.

 

[Nocturnal]

Obligatory spidey07 post about how bandwidth caps are great because all of you who waste the bandwidth by downloading countless amount of warez should all burn in hell!

 

[Turin39789]

No charter here, but I'd move to dsl if we did.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: dud
Get used to it. The only users "inconvenienced" by caps are the bandwidth hogs dowloading through the ears.

We may not have to get used to it for long. There is lots of talk about the government stepping in to stop this garbage love it or hate it.

sources for gov. talk about this?

Here you go.

As spidey is always tell us, "It's coming." It's just not coming quite in the same way as he is predicting. For now he gets to say "I told you so" which I guess is all he really wanted anyways. Enjoy your 15 minutes.


Source 1

House Democrats and the President push stimulus bill which contains provisions for the expansion of broadband networks and the preservation of net neutrality

Barack Obama and House Democrats talked big when it came to broadband expansion and net neutrality. Apparently, they made good on their promises and packaged net neutrality and broadband expansion provisions into an $819B USD emergency stimulus package.

On Wednesday, House Democrats approved the $819B USD bill, which includes a $40B USD boost to certain areas of the tech sector. The bill offers $6B USD to help expand broadband to areas it does not currently reach and $20B USD to help America bring its health care records online, which should help to greatly cut health care costs.

The bill also includes $11B USD to revamp the nation's electrical grid which is very dilapidated throughout much of the country, having been built in the 1960s, 1950s, or even earlier. The bill will also pump $2B USD into energy efficiency and renewable energy research.

The bill was virtually split on party lines, passing 244-188. Not a single Republican voted to approve the bill. Republicans wanted to cut out the grants and loans for broadband, technology education, and scientific research expansion. They want to replace the bill with a slightly leaner one, with slightly more tax cuts, targeted across more income levels, including for those making over $200,000. The bill now awaits Senate approval.

The Senate is currently drafting its own bill, so technically two bills will go through the approval conference. The House and Senate leaders will meet at a special conference committee to iron out the differences between the two bills. They hope to have a finished piece of legislation submitted by mid-February for President Obama's signature.

Google's Eric Schmidt, Motorola's Greg Brown, IBM's Sam Palmisano, Micron Technology's Steve Appleton and Xerox's Anne Mulcahy were among the CEO's Barack Obama brought to the White House to discuss the bill and other matter. President Obama stated, "I know that there are some who are skeptical of the size and scale of this recovery plan. And I understand that skepticism, given some of the things that have happened in this town in the past."

The new bill is perhaps most significant as it represents the first major legislative victory for both net neutrality and open networks. Net neutrality, stymied under the Bush administration via threat of veto, is the concept that internet traffic, including P2P streams, should not be discriminated against or throttled. Open networking is the principal that network providers should not be allowed to discriminate against certain manufacturers or providers devices, if they have the capability to access the network. Those receiving funding to build networks under the bill will have to abide by these principles.

The bill also includes some of the internet speed mandates previously mentioned. Seventy five percent of the networks built must be fast enough to support video conferencing. While telecom comments are scarce, CTIA, the wireless carriers' principal trade group, did urge lawmakers to vote against the proposal which it called "vague, undefined and unnecessary", citing opposition of telecoms to the openness provisions.

Motorola's Brown however supports the bill, stating, "At the heart of this debate over the economy is the question [of] whether America will be the preferred destination for businesses to operate, entrepreneurs to start ventures, investors to make their financial bets and high-skilled workers to continue their careers. President Obama understands that our economic policy must be geared towards strengthening U.S. competitiveness for the long term."

The bill realizes many of the technology initiatives alluded to in President Obama's inaugural address. While avoiding passing painful regulations on existing networks, the bill offers a nice balance by simply ensuring that new networks are more open and data neutral.

Source 2

The new Democratic controlled government has ambitious plans for the internet and more

Congress under the Bush administration cast largely a blind eye on legislating net neutrality. Net neutrality, the movement to block telecommunication companies from creating "fast lanes" where paying websites would be sped up, while others might slowed down, seemed unlikely to be signed into law by the President who sided with the telecommunication companies on numerous issues.

However, with President-Elect Barack Obama soon to be inaugurated, change is afoot. President-Elect Obama's team, while receiving flak on some tech issues like attempting to delay the transition to digital TV, has largely been praised for its ambitious tech agenda which looks to expand provisions to protect users from telecoms, among other things.

Aaron Cooper, counsel to Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in the Senate Judiciary Committee, says that among the top items that his boss will seek to legislation during Barack Obama's term are performance rights and Net neutrality legislation. This legislation will likely include provisions blocking internet "speed lanes" and also block telecoms from implement data caps on "unlimited" connections, and perhaps to provide users with more overage protection.

Ultimately, the issue of net neutrality is intimately connected with copyright law as is the Democratic Congress and Presidency's attempts to legislate it. The music, film, and video game industries have shown opposition to net neutrality laws, as they fear it will make it illegal to throttle traffic of infringed materials. Daryl Friedman, vice president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences says the music industry will likely support net neutrality "as long as it doesn't mean piracy is equal to legal commerce."

While the Democratic administration may skirt the issue of piracy, or even allow throttling in cases of infringement, Mr. Cooper says that Patrick Leahy will seek mild copyright reform. At stake are scenarios such as online storage of personal off-the-air recordings, internet radio, and other examples, which see current copyright laws failing to provide a realistic solution. In the case of recordings, companies like Cablevision have been pleading their case to the Justice Department and the courts, arguing that their recording and storage services are no different than an internet-connected TiVo.

Mr. Cooper supports allowing such use saying that copyright laws are "geared toward an analog world." Gigi Sohn, the president of public interest group Public Knowledge, too, argues that the service should be perfectly legal, stating, "Are we really going to say every single temporary copy demands a licensing fee? I think that's insane."

Alec French, vice president for government relations for NBC Universal says such a scenario, though would be disastrous for the TV and movie industry. He said the industry would oppose any Democratic legislation which involved such reforms. He states that allowing such services would be akin to "setting a roadmap out for anyone who wants to create a copyright infringing service."

In the case of web radio, the Democratic congress may seek to reform copyright laws so as to encourage lower rates for small internet radio stations, who can't afford big licensing fees like offline radio stations. Michael Petricone, senior vice president for government affairs of the Consumer Electronics Association, says that the music industry, in its greed, is missing out on this possible abundant source of income. If it were to compromise and agree to lower rates, a boom of web casters would arise and be allowed to grow, leading to a lot of revenue. He states, "They will be the future of the industry if they're allowed to thrive. Let's not cook the golden goose."

While the Democratic-controlled Presidency and Congress will almost undoubtedly pursue net neutrality, performance rights, and copyright reform legislation, they're still trying to come to a consensus on exactly what the best solution is. However, the party agrees it?s time for change.

 

[spidey07]

Xavier, you will also notice that they (Charter) are providing an unlimited service for 140 bucks a month. I never said you couldn't have an unlimited service, just that one needs to pay for it because the prices where they are at today cannot sustain an all you can eat model.

If gubment steps in to say you can't have caps then expect home broadband prices to skyrocket.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Xavier, you will also notice that they (Charter) are providing an unlimited service for 140 bucks a month. I never said you couldn't have an unlimited service, just that one needs to pay for it because the prices where they are at today cannot sustain an all you can eat model.

If gubment steps in to say you can't have caps then expect home broadband prices to skyrocket.

I agree with this for the most part. I'm never for government intervention unless it is absolutely necessary and I see nothing but higher prices ahead if they decide to get involved here. I just hope these cable companies begin offering their own on demand type services (not via cablebox) that do not count against usage in order to counter the fact that I may very well hit the limit just by watching 30 hd movies on Hulu/Netflix/360, TV shows (same mediums), downloading some demos on my PC and 360, and whatever other random things I do (gaming, Zune Marketplace downloads, etc.). Really once HD quality is thrown into the mix that bandwidth can go fairly quickly.

Realistically I will never hit that cap. However, if I were to ever be stuck at home for a month, like I'm sure a lot of the college crew is, then I see how you could easily hit 100GB or 200GB.