Internet Data Caps

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Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,298
23
81
Not true, at least not here. I went to 650GB last month and it was never slow. Part of that was downloading all 60GB of GTA5 twice because of a corrupt install.

You missed my meaning, I'm not implying they throttle your speed (as the cell phone companies do). Rather, there are only so many seconds in the month, so at a given download speed, maxed for the entire month, you can grab a certain maximum amount of data.
 

Denithor

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
6,298
23
81
You're making an assumption that average data throughput scales linearly with the speed of the connection, and this isn't true. People on 100Mbit connections aren't on average downloading 2x as much as the average people on 50mbit connections, it's more like 5x as much.

Very, very true, as people who pay the extra for higher speeds are the ones who are actually using their connections.

Of course, with Netflix, Hulu, etc and people "cutting the cord" on cable TV, this is likely starting to shift, as even people on the lower tier speed plans will be consuming more and more data.

Maybe the ISPs, who are mostly also the cable TV companies, should repurpose the portions of spectrum that carry TV signal to internet data (broaden the available data bandwidth) and send it all through in the form of internet data?
 

Anteaus

Platinum Member
Oct 28, 2010
2,448
4
81
Monopolies are bad and in the US you have one because the government are stupid smacktards, thankfully we got rid of that in the UK over the last few decades.

With no intention to diminish your post, you are partly wrong. Certain monopolies are bad. Capitalism is based on monopoly. Patent and copyright laws are specifically designed to provide monopoly (even in the UK). In regards to the UK, I'm glad that your internet system is more diverse but it isn't directly comparable. The internet capacity provided in any of our largest cities could easily handle the traffic needs of the entire UK. The US is 37 times the size of the UK and our population is more spread out. Imagine taking the entire internet capacity of the UK, metaphorically copying it to the clipboard and then pasting 100 copies all over the US....that's the challenge we have. Add the fact that there are numerous regional internet providers that are actually phone companies who supply DSL so slow it barely qualifies as broadband and due to people using fewer land lines, their business models don't allow much money for real expansion.

Anyways, monopoly is a necessary evil. The only case where monopoly is not preferred is when it becomes intrusive to the point where it stymies competition or creates incentive to abuse price control. Ever international trade deal ever written was designed to provide monopoly to one party at the expense of another. Next time you take a sip of scotch (assuming you drink), remember that legal monopoly is the only reason you can be assured that it came from Scotland.

I'm not picking on you. I just wanted to point out a common misunderstanding about what monopoly actually means to economies.
 

wanderer27

Platinum Member
Aug 6, 2005
2,173
15
81
I'm not sure we're all talking Apples to Apples here.

In the USA, most Broadband Internet users are getting their service on the same cable as their Cable TV - I'm not sure that's fully the case in the rest of the world, or even 100% of the USA.

I'm probably guilty of going a little off topic on this by dragging in Cable TV, but since it's combined on the same cable in my (and most) cases it's relevant.

The current Caps are a PITA, but their policies are stupid.
Their (Cable Companies) cash cow is Cable TV, but they've structured their service and pricing such, that in my case, it's just too abusive.

For example, in my case I was getting ~300 channels, but probably half of those are in a Language I don't speak, another sizable chunk of Sports channels I have no interest in, a dozen or so Wall Street type channels I'll never watch, and then throw in a handful of Shopping/Infomercial channels, and what's left?

Over the past few years they've cranked the cost from ~$120/mo to ~$200/mo with the result of people dropping their TV service (like I just did).

So in my case they essentially priced their TV service out (their cash cow) and forced me to increase my Internet usage by viewing more TV via streaming, plus they're pulling in less revenue from me now.

If they weren't the greedy b@$t@rds they are, and/or gave their customers the options of which channels they really wanted, perhaps they'd still have more Cable TV subscribers instead of chasing them away to the Internet streaming model.



Something else I haven't seen brought up is Cloud Computing/Storage/Services.

All these companies are trying to get everybody to move their stuff to the Cloud, but with these Data Caps it's going to be somewhat detrimental.




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smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
I'm not sure we're all talking Apples to Apples here.

In the USA, most Broadband Internet users are getting their service on the same cable as their Cable TV - I'm not sure that's fully the case in the rest of the world, or even 100% of the USA.

I'm probably guilty of going a little off topic on this by dragging in Cable TV, but since it's combined on the same cable in my (and most) cases it's relevant.

The current Caps are a PITA, but their policies are stupid.
Their (Cable Companies) cash cow is Cable TV, but they've structured their service and pricing such, that in my case, it's just too abusive.

For example, in my case I was getting ~300 channels, but probably half of those are in a Language I don't speak, another sizable chunk of Sports channels I have no interest in, a dozen or so Wall Street type channels I'll never watch, and then throw in a handful of Shopping/Infomercial channels, and what's left?

Over the past few years they've cranked the cost from ~$120/mo to ~$200/mo with the result of people dropping their TV service (like I just did).

So in my case they essentially priced their TV service out (their cash cow) and forced me to increase my Internet usage by viewing more TV via streaming, plus they're pulling in less revenue from me now.

If they weren't the greedy b@$t@rds they are, and/or gave their customers the options of which channels they really wanted, perhaps they'd still have more Cable TV subscribers instead of chasing them away to the Internet streaming model.



Something else I haven't seen brought up is Cloud Computing/Storage/Services.

All these companies are trying to get everybody to move their stuff to the Cloud, but with these Data Caps it's going to be somewhat detrimental.




.
Cable TV is a bad comparison. The TV companies built their infrastructure to send every use all channels at all times. No amount of use will effect anyone else. And no amount of use gets billed differently. I can watch a channel 24/7 and pay the same as if I never turned my TV on.

Unlike TV, internet wasn't built in that fashion. They continue to give users the ability to use more than all users can use at once and then charge for that usage (beyond charging them for increased speed).
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I'm not sure we're all talking Apples to Apples here.

In the USA, most Broadband Internet users are getting their service on the same cable as their Cable TV - I'm not sure that's fully the case in the rest of the world, or even 100% of the USA.

I'm probably guilty of going a little off topic on this by dragging in Cable TV, but since it's combined on the same cable in my (and most) cases it's relevant.

The current Caps are a PITA, but their policies are stupid.
Their (Cable Companies) cash cow is Cable TV, but they've structured their service and pricing such, that in my case, it's just too abusive.

For example, in my case I was getting ~300 channels, but probably half of those are in a Language I don't speak, another sizable chunk of Sports channels I have no interest in, a dozen or so Wall Street type channels I'll never watch, and then throw in a handful of Shopping/Infomercial channels, and what's left?

Over the past few years they've cranked the cost from ~$120/mo to ~$200/mo with the result of people dropping their TV service (like I just did).

So in my case they essentially priced their TV service out (their cash cow) and forced me to increase my Internet usage by viewing more TV via streaming, plus they're pulling in less revenue from me now.

If they weren't the greedy b@$t@rds they are, and/or gave their customers the options of which channels they really wanted, perhaps they'd still have more Cable TV subscribers instead of chasing them away to the Internet streaming model.



Something else I haven't seen brought up is Cloud Computing/Storage/Services.

All these companies are trying to get everybody to move their stuff to the Cloud, but with these Data Caps it's going to be somewhat detrimental.




.

Yeah I agree with the last bit about streaming and such. Comcast even blocks HBOGo from some devices. I can't activate it on my FireTV but I can on the ipad, iPhone, and Xbox which is absurd.

The last bit about cloud storage is something I've never been a fan of. I don't want my personal stuff out there on someone else's server to look at. That's what they want, unhindered access to your data. Yeah you have a password, but whoever runs the server it's stores on can probably look at it if they wanted and allow interested parties to look at it (government). I always thought it to be a little like the mobile phone companies. They advertise all the stuff you can do with your new Android or iPhone. Tell you how you can skype/facetime, how you can stream movies and TV, how you can share pictures and video etc. Then they want to sell you a plan with 3GB for an unreasonable amount of money (and in FL you get something like an 18% tax on your bill)
 

PrincessFrosty

Platinum Member
Feb 13, 2008
2,300
68
91
www.frostyhacks.blogspot.com
With no intention to diminish your post, you are partly wrong. Certain monopolies are bad. Capitalism is based on monopoly.

Not even slightly right. Capitalism is based on free and voluntary trade, in a truly capitalistic society (like the US used to be a long time ago) anyone can compete to offer services, in the US there was a period where the government stepped in and created a monopoly in the phone system and internet provisioning by bringing in regulations and taking control.

Monopolies can only be sustained when one company has an unfair advantage over the others such as government enforced rules and regulations that favour one over the other, they're almost never seen in actual free markets. Never the less monopolies always involve force from some institution like a government and so are always bad because no one should have the right to force anyone else to do anything, that's the opposite of capitalism.

Sure the US is bigger but that's not really relevant at all, more people just mean more revenue since ISPs are in the business of making money. The problem over there is the loss of the free market, the UK had exactly the same problem and BT our main provider had a monopoly, now the physical lines are opened up for anyone to use and we have a really healthy broadband market which is highly competitive and it drives prices down.

The underlying problem still present in most peoples thinking however is this idea that somehow bandwidth is cheap or even free, when it's quite the opposite, it's expensive and provisioning a lot of it costs a lot of money and when you pay for a cheap connection you sacrifice certain things like having data caps.
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
5,852
146
Not even slightly right. Capitalism is based on free and voluntary trade, in a truly capitalistic society (like the US used to be a long time ago) anyone can compete to offer services, in the US there was a period where the government stepped in and created a monopoly in the phone system and internet provisioning by bringing in regulations and taking control.

Monopolies can only be sustained when one company has an unfair advantage over the others such as government enforced rules and regulations that favour one over the other, they're almost never seen in actual free markets. Never the less monopolies always involve force from some institution like a government and so are always bad because no one should have the right to force anyone else to do anything, that's the opposite of capitalism.

Sure the US is bigger but that's not really relevant at all, more people just mean more revenue since ISPs are in the business of making money. The problem over there is the loss of the free market, the UK had exactly the same problem and BT our main provider had a monopoly, now the physical lines are opened up for anyone to use and we have a really healthy broadband market which is highly competitive and it drives prices down.

The underlying problem still present in most peoples thinking however is this idea that somehow bandwidth is cheap or even free, when it's quite the opposite, it's expensive and provisioning a lot of it costs a lot of money and when you pay for a cheap connection you sacrifice certain things like having data caps.

No, monopolies absolutely occur on their own in free markets as well. Plenty of instances of companies that gained monopoly power without government regulation (in fact due to the lack of it actually), just by controlling all the means they can (there were tons of this happening in the early 1900s). They were actually a lot more common but then government regulation worked to reduce it. Obviously that's not always been perfect either, but the only reason that monopolies tend to exist now is because in certain markets there's benefits that outweigh the negatives for various reasons (when it comes to things like utilities, the only way to have actual free market competition is if the government sets up the infrastructure as it's not feasible to have tons of companies putting in their own; plus there would be so much turnover in companies that it could end up with worse service or none at all which are bigger problems). Point is, regulations are what has helped limit monopolies from being more common.

It is true that government did setup monopolies in the US with regards to communications although it's not quite how you act like it is. They allowed if a company put in the infrastructure that they would gain sole right to provide service. Which that actually worked pretty well for a while as it gave incentive for companies to put in service back when none existed there. However over time fewer and fewer companies were actually in control until it culminated in Bell's dominance (which was broken up but has effectively built back up, now we have AT&T and Verizon). Then we saw the rise of cable which operated similarly. The issue is that governments didn't put in term limits for monopoly control, and companies got so used to it that they've done about as much as possible to not compete.

But that's also why your whole argument is horribly flawed in that you act like ISPs can't afford to provide consistent bandwidth for users which is just wrong. Fact is we already paid for the infrastructure via government subsidies, tax breaks, and also directly by paying excessive amounts for service. Meaning that you say it's so expensive for them to be able to provide adequate bandwidth, but what we're trying to tell you is that we already paid and continue to do so and yet they're trying to add bandwidth caps and other things to try and charge more for the service they claimed they were already supplying, while they simultaneously advertise how great their networks are (but then are complaining to the FCC about how much they're hurting, all while their profits continue to climb and they continue to try to further expand their dominance by mergers and acquisitions).

If an ISP is losing money on people that download 300GB a month then they're horribly run as it absolutely does not cost them that much to provide that. If all of their customers started doing that then yes it would be different, but they aren't, not even close. Sure it costs more to guarantee bandwidth and speed, which is partly why those services that do cost a lot, but that cost is not that high just because of the bandwidth provisioning (it's not even close). It costs that much because it pays for guaranteed service as in if there's a line that goes down they go and get it fixed ASAP, as well as other features that ensure no downtime for the customer. The market for that is also a lot smaller meaning much higher prices, that's simple economies of scale.

Oh and also, regulations are actually an integral part of the internet. Now discussions about what those should be and who should be in control of them is a different issue, but acting like everything would be great without any is just nonsense. Look at technology in general, it's been necessary to have to come up with standards and regulations in order to keep things open and accessible. Coming up with them actually helped the growth of the internet. Oh and surely we don't have to remind you who actually got the internet started (a government entity).

Also you do realize it was regulation that opened up the internet in the UK, right? The government instituted local loop unbundling, which forced companies to have to lease their lines to anyone, enabling ISPs to crop up and compete just on service. Without regulation those companies in a free market would have been able to say no its their line.

In the US in the late 90s, the FCC actually had also done that but with regards to the telephone lines (since they have been paid for many times over by that point) and for a while we saw really good competition in dial-up and even DSL. They actually got rid of it with regards to DSL several years back which is why DSL went to crap here. Now, we have issues because two of the major phone line providers (AT&T and Verizon) are also the two major cellular providers and cellular and guess which one is more profitable (even though they're also spending tons of money on the networks)? Guess what's happening? They're letting phone lines rot and trying to push people to wireless service.

With regards to bandwidth caps, they absolutely are not about doing what you said (spreading out usage over time). If they were they would just say that during times of high network utilization that they will throttle speeds (and just cap everyone at a certain speed) and they would work with the people using high amounts of bandwidth to see if they could adjust when they utilized it to lessen their load for peak times. But they don't, they generally send warnings to the user that they'll terminate their service and/or try to get them to upgrade to their more expensive commercial services. Or they decided to do the caps so they could just charge large fees for overages. They have outright admitted this to the FCC (that its not about congestion, they just feel they should get to charge more for more use like they get to on mobile). Which mobile carriers got caught redhanded throttling unlimited data users, at first claiming they only did it when the network was congested, but then they admitted that had nothing to do with it. Even having a soft cap where they just throttle your speed once you go beyond it doesn't really do what you claim a cap is there for as bandwidth consumption tends to not be so consistent so its not like its something end users could fix easily so they basically would have to just plain drastically reduce their overall use or switch (which often isn't possible or is only to another company where they'll likely have the same problems). The other thing is that they've rebuffed offers that would help lower their network issues (Netflix offered to put servers directly on their networks, for free mind you, so that it would both limit congestion at the interlinks between the ISPs and the rest of the network and provide faster speed and thus better quality of Netflix content for the ISPs customers, who by the way already payed the ISP for the bandwidth they're requesting from Netflix; the major ones flatly refused this and demanded that Netflix pay them for direct connection).
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
I had a 3000GB symbolic data cap on my 100/20. But from April 1st it was removed. Same time the automatic upgrade to 300/60mbit started.

And in case anyone wonders, its a monopoly company basicly. Since the only alternative is some slow ADSL or 4G.
 
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wanderer27

Platinum Member
Aug 6, 2005
2,173
15
81
But that's also why your whole argument is horribly flawed in that you act like ISPs can't afford to provide consistent bandwidth for users which is just wrong. Fact is we already paid for the infrastructure via government subsidies, tax breaks, and also directly by paying excessive amounts for service. Meaning that you say it's so expensive for them to be able to provide adequate bandwidth, but what we're trying to tell you is that we already paid and continue to do so and yet they're trying to add bandwidth caps and other things to try and charge more for the service they claimed they were already supplying, while they simultaneously advertise how great their networks are (but then are complaining to the FCC about how much they're hurting, all while their profits continue to climb and they continue to try to further expand their dominance by mergers and acquisitions).

+1

I meant to bring this up, that in the USA we (Tax payers) subsidized a lot of Network expansion projects when the Internet took off in the late 90's.

Dark Fiber (unused) is/was the result, and as far as I know, I believe there is still quite a bit of this out there.

In the US in the late 90s, the FCC actually had also done that but with regards to the telephone lines (since they have been paid for many times over by that point) and for a while we saw really good competition in dial-up and even DSL. They actually got rid of it with regards to DSL several years back which is why DSL went to crap here. Now, we have issues because two of the major phone line providers (AT&T and Verizon) are also the two major cellular providers and cellular and guess which one is more profitable (even though they're also spending tons of money on the networks)? Guess what's happening? They're letting phone lines rot and trying to push people to wireless service.


Don't forget to add that AT&T bought Direct TV and Verizon has/had a Fios TV/Cable component, so these big players are also moving to the TV side of things.


With regards to bandwidth caps, they absolutely are not about doing what you said (spreading out usage over time). If they were they would just say that during times of high network utilization that they will throttle speeds (and just cap everyone at a certain speed) and they would work with the people using high amounts of bandwidth to see if they could adjust when they utilized it to lessen their load for peak times. But they don't, they generally send warnings to the user that they'll terminate their service and/or try to get them to upgrade to their more expensive commercial services. Or they decided to do the caps so they could just charge large fees for overages. They have outright admitted this to the FCC (that its not about congestion, they just feel they should get to charge more for more use like they get to on mobile). Which mobile carriers got caught redhanded throttling unlimited data users, at first claiming they only did it when the network was congested, but then they admitted that had nothing to do with it. Even having a soft cap where they just throttle your speed once you go beyond it doesn't really do what you claim a cap is there for as bandwidth consumption tends to not be so consistent so its not like its something end users could fix easily so they basically would have to just plain drastically reduce their overall use or switch (which often isn't possible or is only to another company where they'll likely have the same problems). The other thing is that they've rebuffed offers that would help lower their network issues (Netflix offered to put servers directly on their networks, for free mind you, so that it would both limit congestion at the interlinks between the ISPs and the rest of the network and provide faster speed and thus better quality of Netflix content for the ISPs customers, who by the way already payed the ISP for the bandwidth they're requesting from Netflix; the major ones flatly refused this and demanded that Netflix pay them for direct connection).

In all fairness, the real Bottleneck for a Wireless Carrier is the Frequency Spectrum (Airwaves), so this wouldn't really solve that part of their problem.

I wouldn't rule out something like this happening with the other Carriers or in the future though.
This will add floor space and Infrastructure issues, but it could help with Backhaul costs . . . I just don't know where the cost effectiveness point for this comes into play.


Good post and good points.




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futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
6,470
32
91
It's my phone data cap that annoys the hell out of me.

I'm still getting the same 2gb per month since 2010 or whatever.

But with ads on every page, adblock disabled on Android, and web pages in generral so much more image intense, that 2gb is practically nothing now.
 

wanderer27

Platinum Member
Aug 6, 2005
2,173
15
81
It's my phone data cap that annoys the hell out of me.

I'm still getting the same 2gb per month since 2010 or whatever.

But with ads on every page, adblock disabled on Android, and web pages in generral so much more image intense, that 2gb is practically nothing now.

Yeah, now for Mobile phones I can understand the Data Caps as there's only so much Frequency available.

But 2GB, if you're in the USA, I'd say look at another Carrier.



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TeknoBug

Platinum Member
Oct 2, 2013
2,084
31
91
My ISP already has a cap, used to have unlimited then they brought it down to 250GB then down to 150GB while skyrocketing monthly rates all on the same contract I've had since 1998. There's literally no competition in Canada, the Big 4 cooperates (Bell, Telus, Shaw and Rogers) and keeps rates up equally and you really don't gain much switching from one to another. Indie ISP are the best alternative but coverage is extremely limited.

I don't know how I'd still be gaming if gaming went all digital soon, physical media is the main reason why I still play games.
 
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