Time Warner bandwidth caps arrive (updated)

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan

Originally posted by: QueBert

Originally posted by: MrDudeMan
Most people don't use nearly 40gb per month.

40gb per month is 133mb per hour for 10 hours a day every day. I played WoW last night for 5 hours while watching YouTube videos on my other monitor basically the entire time and I still didn't use 100mb.

I hope every ISP does this so the assholes who are using all the bandwith can start paying for it. I haven't even come close to 40gb in a month even when I was pirating software frequently. I haven't downloaded anything in the last year other than free map packs or updates and I still barely hit 5gb per month.

do you care in the process the $$$ you pay for internet will go up? and for the record

1 hour of youtube would be over 100 megs on it's own, if you watched youtube + played WOW for 5 hours straight I would estimate your bandwidth to be around 650-700 megs, more if you're doing raids in WOW.

You'd be @ about 1/2 of your monthly bandwidth if you used your internet for nothing else but WOW + Youtube nightly.

40 gigs ain't shit, any ways enjoy your higher rates and capped bandwidth you're wishing for, because you'll probably get it.

Bring on the capped bandwith so morons like you will start paying for the 65Gb per month you are using. To quote you, "for the record" I play games daily either on my computer or Xbox Live, I watch youtube frequently, and I send pictures from my SLR to my family.

I have 15 internet enabled devices in my house which constantly are updating themselves including my TiVo and my universal remote that downloads updates every 3 hours in order to show the upcoming shows on every channel on the LCD. I use the internet with no reservations while I'm at home and neither does my wife. I present to you the conversation I just had with a Comcast rep over the online chat.

Anthony_(Tue Jun 03 2008 14:29:19 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
i was curious if there is a way to check how much bandwith i use per month from the comcast website

Jeff(Tue Jun 03 2008 16:29:45 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
Sorry, Comcast does not offer that feature at the current time.

Anthony_(Tue Jun 03 2008 14:30:15 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
ok np, is there any way you could tell me how much i use on a monthly basis? i have 15 internet enabled devices in my home and im curious how much is being downloaded

Jeff(Tue Jun 03 2008 16:30:45 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
Please give me a moment to access your account information.

Anthony_(Tue Jun 03 2008 14:31:20 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
take your time. im also curious how much it would cost to upgrade my internet service. what is my current upload/download speed and how much faster is the next level up?

Jeff(Tue Jun 03 2008 16:32:21 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
I show that you are on the promotional rate for 29.95/month for the Internet for 6 months. That service is normally 42.95/month. The maximum download is 6Mbps and 384kbps for upload.

Jeff(Tue Jun 03 2008 16:32:38 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
The Speed Tier is 52.95/month and that would increase the bandwidth maximums to 8Mbps and 768kbps.

Jeff(Tue Jun 03 2008 16:33:09 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
Your household used 8.2Gb during the month of May.

Anthony_(Tue Jun 03 2008 14:33:27 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
is there a way for you to see an average over the past year?

Jeff(Tue Jun 03 2008 16:34:11 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time))>
Your monthly usage is consistently around 6.5Gb. Your peak usage occured during October of last year at 9.3Gb.

From this link

wow really? i just tested an hour of play, with only other thing using the internet being ichat and dashboard... only 2.51mb downloaded and 1.44mb uploaded.

From this link

about 5mb p/h

It'll use as much as it needs to as of somewhat recently, but that's not much at all.

If you're in places like Shatt, it'll use significantly more. But we're only on a scale of a few megabytes per hour still.

From this link

Heres a bandwidth log from my router. This was about 16 hours of WoW one day and browing the internet. No torrents, no newsgroups, no irc, this is the total both download and upload.

88.11 MB

88.11Mb / 16 hours = 5.5Mb per hour, which seems to be what everyone else is observing.

Therefore, your claim of 650-700Mb is flat out wrong.

most of my claim was from Youtube, no way in hell you're streaming videos off Youtube for 5 hours straight and playing WOW the whole time and using less than 600 megs. Wow doesn't use much bandwidth I think I said the same thing, but Youtube eats it up considering the quality of the video.

 

[Foxery]

Originally posted by: isekii
Well that's because WOW usually downloads most of it's content so it runs off your computer.
So the initial play might be bigger but once it's downloaded it should be minimal. But what about other games that don't do something like this?

Er, this is how all games work. Hence why you copy several gigs of data from a CD/DVD to your hard drive.

The network usage of an online game comes from the movement and actions performed by characters around you. You can, in fact, play most online games on 56k dialup. The latency is shit, but that is all the bandwidth that is required to stay connected. (This includes WoW, to some degree. Not Shattrath, and not raids - there are too many motion/action updates going on.)

**********

How about some fun numbers. Here is how much data you can theoretically pull, if we guess that you spend ~4 hours every day for a month, from dinner time to bedtime, maxing out the connection with High Def video.

768kbits DSL/Cable: 41 GB per month (1.38/day)
3.0Mbits DSL/Cable: 162 GB per month (5.4/day)
10MBits FIOS/Cable: 540 GB per month (18/day)

That's funny. If I'm a couch potato, Time Warner's cap gives my 10MBit connection the same total capacity as the cheapest plan around!

Daily allowance for the proposed "new" 768k cap: 166 MB/day.
Peachy for mom & dad checking their email; beyond useless to anyone who lives in this century.

 

[Praxis1452]

Originally posted by: shabby
Wow you yanks are getting jipped, even up here in canadia our caps are reasonable at 100gigs for $50 from rogers cable. Thankfully i cancelled and went with dsl at $30/month with 200gigs cap, while $40 gets you unlimited, and thats not even the cheapest you can go.

Even though anecdotal... I'm just putting the question out there... why exactly do other countries have far faster internet connections, along with a cap that is much larger?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
I understand that, the point was the ISPs are screwing over a majority of the users, and only 0.4% are screwing over the ISPs. How can they not come out ahead in this scenario.

Also, most of the related costs would be relatively constant no matter how much bandwidth a person uses. Billing, for example, would be the same, as it's dependent on number of subscribers, not how much they use.

I wouldn't hold onto that .4% number. That's quite below industry norms. norms being 5-10% of the customer base.

On the topic of operational expense - the big chunk of any network operator. That IS constant, provided you do not add any more customers or any capacity. But that's not realistic as capacity and customers are added all the time and the operational expense (and associated wholesale bandwidth costs, staff, etc) rise. The good part is this is just normal business and rising operational costs are watched by profit to make sure overall profit margins are maintained.

But when operational expense squeezes too much into profit (slim profit margins as they are) then adequate forcasting/planning and fee structures have to be evaluated as the main topic of the OP illustrates.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Praxis1452

Originally posted by: shabby
Wow you yanks are getting jipped, even up here in canadia our caps are reasonable at 100gigs for $50 from rogers cable. Thankfully i cancelled and went with dsl at $30/month with 200gigs cap, while $40 gets you unlimited, and thats not even the cheapest you can go.

Even though anecdotal... I'm just putting the question out there... why exactly do other countries have far faster internet connections, along with a cap that is much larger?

Government subsidized monopoly, shorter distances, higher population density, newer infrastructure.

 

[Foxery]

Originally posted by: Praxis1452
Even though anecdotal... I'm just putting the question out there... why exactly do other countries have far faster internet connections, along with a cap that is much larger?

Two main factors:
1) They started later, thus starting with newer technology. e.g. Building fiber optic networks from day 1, instead of struggling with World War II era copper telephone lines.
2) Population density, especially in western Europe and Asia. Wiring cities is infinitely easier than wiring farmland. Averages that consider the entire USA are heavily skewed by the huge amounts of rural space.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Praxis1452

Originally posted by: shabby
Wow you yanks are getting jipped, even up here in canadia our caps are reasonable at 100gigs for $50 from rogers cable. Thankfully i cancelled and went with dsl at $30/month with 200gigs cap, while $40 gets you unlimited, and thats not even the cheapest you can go.

Even though anecdotal... I'm just putting the question out there... why exactly do other countries have far faster internet connections, along with a cap that is much larger?

I've read that for a lot of countries, actual speed is nowhere near advertised. For example, I think the 100Mbit Japan offers is far from it (100Mbit is probably the max theoretical bandwidth of the pipe, but in reality there rarely is enough bandwidth available to achieve this). Also, because transcontinental pipes have pretty limited bandwidth, the higher bandwidth is only available domestically.

EDIT: After some quick Googling I came by this, scroll down to the post by Graham, he gives some info on actual Japanese broadband speeds. Looks like the 100Mbit fiber is very respectable (probably only to domestic servers, though), and the DSL, no matter the advertised speed, is crap just like in the US.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au...rchive.cfm/641099.html

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: Anubis
caps not good, way to low



http://arstechnica.com/news.ar...width-caps-arrive.html

40GB is HUGE!!!!! We service 200 employee corporations that only use 30GB/month. Turn off Bit Torrent and it won't be an issue.

I work for a big ISP- only .4% of our customers go over 10GB per month. The ones that do are impacting the network for other users, causing the need for more infrastructure and bandwidth. If those .4% are causing the other 99.6% slowness, would you expect an ISP to :

A) Charge higher fees to everyone
B) Make the heavy users pay more

I know which one seems fair to me.

Please explain how your ISP is having such problems if 99.6% of your paying customers are not using hardly any bandwidth? Their lack of usage combined should more than satisfy those other 0.4% of your users. Something isn't adding up right here at all.

Also, I say that if ISPs are going to charge more for additional bandwidth then they need to refund those for every bit of bandwidth that they do not use which is under their set cap.

I'll be glad to explain. Say you have a 100Mb pipe from an ATM. If you have 10 people at 10Mb running full bore 24/7, it's going to screw everyone else using that pipe.

Also, your refund suggestion is stupid. I'm sure your phone company, cell phone company, and cable TV company are going to refund you for unused services too.

I don't think that really answers his question.

Let's do a bit of math, according to this article, bandwidth in the UK costs about £0.5/GB, which is $0.98/GB. Of course this is kind of an apples to oranges comparison, but it jives with the $1/GB overcharge that TW is proposing, so let's stick with it.

This means that 99.6% of your customers are using $10 or less worth of bandwidth every month. How much are you charging these customers? $40? $50? That's a profit margin of a few hundred percent.

So let's say there are 100,000 subscribers in this region, assuming $40/mo subscription and all customers using 10GB/mo, the ISP is making $2.99 million dollars. Now, this leaves the 0.4% using >$10. With the bandwidth cost of $1/GB, they'd have to be using greater than 40GB/mo for the ISP to be losing money. Let's be unrealistic and assume they all use 1TB/mo. This means each of the 400 customers is costing the ISP $960/month, or $384,000 total. $3 million minus $400,000 is still a shitload of money.

So something here isn't right. Either a lot more people are "power users" than you're suggesting, or bandwidth is a lot more expensive than $1/mo.

EDIT: As far as network congestion goes, ISPs need to stop offering bandwidth they can't handle. I can understand monthly usage caps, but there's no reason a person shouldn't able to use 10Mbps whenever they want for as long as they want if that's what they're paying for. If ISPs can't handle that, they should start selling 5Mbps, or offer a "turbo" feature (i.e. 10Mbps temporary boost for say 10 minutes, but drops to 5Mbps after that to help keep the 24/7 downloaders from sucking up too much of the neighbors' bandwidth).

what's not right here is the cable company is greedy, they're using the people who download a lot as scaregoats for increasing their prices. That way they'll make more off the typical user, and the power user who has to pay for overages they really make a killing on.
My web hosting gives me 15 gigs of bandwidth a month for 3 bucks and they're not overselling much, I'm sure if every single hoster used 15 gigs they'd up the price a few bucks but nothing drastic.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: QueBert
what's not right here is the cable company is greedy, they're using the people who download a lot as scaregoats for increasing their prices. That way they'll make more off the typical user, and the power user who has to pay for overages they really make a killing on.
My web hosting gives me 15 gigs of bandwidth a month for 3 bucks and they're not overselling much, I'm sure if every single hoster used 15 gigs they'd up the price a few bucks but nothing drastic.

Do NOT compare a hosting company with a network operator. They are completely and totally different animals. When all of your data/bandwidth is contained to 100,000 square feet it's very cheap to provide a lot of capacity.

Just to compare - 10 gigabit optics for short distances = 2000 bucks
10 gig optics and hardware for long distances = 180,000 bucks, plus the cost of fiber, repeaters, trucks, maintenance staff, etc.

 

[Motorheader]

When RR first came to my area about 10-11 years ago the tech rep stated flatly that they had enough bandwidth for everyone 10mb+ for 100k users. I was an installer and a beta user as well. Those Motorola modems and nobody on was insanely fast. Well as soon as people started getting on and they were no where near that many users, the network speed started to be much less than they advertised (and what we were told by OUR network tech reps) the first thing they did was slow the network down (cap speed) and change the wording to the advertisements and end-user agreement. Gah I hated those Toshiba cable modems. What a painful experience it was changing people's rock steady Motorola modems for those less-than-stellar Toshiba units<--at least at that time.

Since there is no other cable competition in my area, this type of action is typical of TW, which is unfortunate.

DSL in my area is great. At least for me the uptime is near perfect and the speeds are consistently FAST.

 

[scttgrd]

All this boils down to is keeping out the competition, and pocketing the profits. Why upgrade when you can just cap the well and charge more for it. And as a side benefit you eliminate other providers creeping in on your territory. Keep them hooked up to your VOIP, VOD and television. This isn't as much about bandwidth as it is herding customers into a walled garden of content.

 

[Muadib]

Every damn person in Beaumont should leave TWC! I bet they don't have Fios there though.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
I understand that, the point was the ISPs are screwing over a majority of the users, and only 0.4% are screwing over the ISPs. How can they not come out ahead in this scenario.

Also, most of the related costs would be relatively constant no matter how much bandwidth a person uses. Billing, for example, would be the same, as it's dependent on number of subscribers, not how much they use.

I wouldn't hold onto that .4% number. That's quite below industry norms. norms being 5-10% of the customer base.

On the topic of operational expense - the big chunk of any network operator. That IS constant, provided you do not add any more customers or any capacity. But that's not realistic as capacity and customers are added all the time and the operational expense (and associated wholesale bandwidth costs, staff, etc) rise. The good part is this is just normal business and rising operational costs are watched by profit to make sure overall profit margins are maintained.

But when operational expense squeezes too much into profit (slim profit margins as they are) then adequate forcasting/planning and fee structures have to be evaluated as the main topic of the OP illustrates.

5-10% is a lot closer to what I would have expected, I was just using the 0.4% because that's what Frizto was using to justify his argument.

And I'm sure once operational costs are added margins do get much smaller, but I doubt things are as bad as they'd like us to think. The large cablecos are still making billions in profit, how bad could they be doing? Maybe in the long run it'd be better to pull in a smaller profit for a few years and invest heavily into network upgrades. Just make sure to assure stockholders that if they stick with them, this will give the company a huge edge in the market, leading to higher profits in the long-run.

Of course, there's probably not much incentive to create a better service. ISPs will impose caps, and most people will live with it, because there aren't really any good alternatives available. Maybe once WiMax penetration is higher cablecos will be forced to actually be competitive.

 

[Parasitic]

I hate this stupid cap...I just signed up for TWC yesterday and am in the process of dropping Sprint EVDO because they're putting a 5GB cap on it, and now it sounds like TWC is doing a 40GB soon?

I don't think I've downloaded 40GB in a month, but having to meter things really really sucks.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
I hate this stupid cap...I just signed up for TWC yesterday and am in the process of dropping Sprint EVDO because they're putting a 5GB cap on it, and now it sounds like TWC is doing a 40GB soon?

I don't think I've downloaded 40GB in a month, but having to meter things really really sucks.

I heard about the Sprint cap, that really sucks. Is Alltel available in your area? I have their EVDO service and use a decent amount of bandwidth every month (probably between 30-40GB) and they don't seem to mind. Of course, with Verizon and Sprint both capping at 5GB now, it may only be a matter of time before Alltel goes with one as well.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: PaulNEPats
Wow, a company which makes Comcast look good in comparison. Amazing.

Don't hold your breath.

"Unless you are an extremely heavy user of internet resources (which is not likely) you will not notice any change to your internet experience during this test," Mitch Bowling, general manager of Comcast online services says in the e-mail. "At the busiest times of the day on our network (which could occur at any time), those very few disproportionately heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends."

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: PaulNEPats
Wow, a company which makes Comcast look good in comparison. Amazing.

Don't hold your breath.

"Unless you are an extremely heavy user of internet resources (which is not likely) you will not notice any change to your internet experience during this test," Mitch Bowling, general manager of Comcast online services says in the e-mail. "At the busiest times of the day on our network (which could occur at any time), those very few disproportionately heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends."

And see, I don't really mind stuff like this. I'm a firm believer in network neutrality, but I think this is a circumstance where exceptions should be made. I have no problem with 24/7 downloaders being given lower priority during heavy usage hours. Smart and fair network management is what most ISPs are really lacking right now IMO.

 

[cubby1223]

Anybody remember the days when a 300 baud modem was cutting edge? Nearly everyone here whines and complains as if they could never survive without their 100gb of data each month.

 

[Wheezer]

Well, I just installed some monitoring software, I got some junk email (about 6 messages) and checked a few sites, went to Break.com watched a clip then Live Leak and my bandwidth went from 0 to 10MB then got online and played one map of Quake Enemy Territory and it jumped up to 20MB down. (it is at 3.71MB up but I do not know what I started at)

 

[CrimsonChaos]

This practice by Time Warner would be more acceptable if they also reduced the rates of those who are using less bandwidth. If you're going to charge power-users more, using the same logic then why not charge people who use very little bandwidth less?

But of course, they aren't going to do that. As others have said, the best thing you can do is drop them if they to enforce this practice in your area.

 

[Cheesetogo]

I really hope that Fios becomes available in my area before they starts this nationwide, because I'd really hate to switch to DSL.

 

[Jumpem]

Is there an application that will record bandwidth used? Might be interesting just to get a baseline of what I use.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
I really hope that Fios becomes available in my area before they starts this nationwide, because I'd really hate to switch to DSL.

What you're not understanding is they face the same problems. Bandwidth is expensive but the battle between cable and telcos is where the consumer wins.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
I understand that, the point was the ISPs are screwing over a majority of the users, and only 0.4% are screwing over the ISPs. How can they not come out ahead in this scenario.

Also, most of the related costs would be relatively constant no matter how much bandwidth a person uses. Billing, for example, would be the same, as it's dependent on number of subscribers, not how much they use.

I wouldn't hold onto that .4% number. That's quite below industry norms. norms being 5-10% of the customer base.

On the topic of operational expense - the big chunk of any network operator. That IS constant, provided you do not add any more customers or any capacity. But that's not realistic as capacity and customers are added all the time and the operational expense (and associated wholesale bandwidth costs, staff, etc) rise. The good part is this is just normal business and rising operational costs are watched by profit to make sure overall profit margins are maintained.

But when operational expense squeezes too much into profit (slim profit margins as they are) then adequate forcasting/planning and fee structures have to be evaluated as the main topic of the OP illustrates.

5-10% is a lot closer to what I would have expected, I was just using the 0.4% because that's what Frizto was using to justify his argument.

And I'm sure once operational costs are added margins do get much smaller, but I doubt things are as bad as they'd like us to think. The large cablecos are still making billions in profit, how bad could they be doing? Maybe in the long run it'd be better to pull in a smaller profit for a few years and invest heavily into network upgrades. Just make sure to assure stockholders that if they stick with them, this will give the company a huge edge in the market, leading to higher profits in the long-run.

Of course, there's probably not much incentive to create a better service. ISPs will impose caps, and most people will live with it, because there aren't really any good alternatives available. Maybe once WiMax penetration is higher cablecos will be forced to actually be competitive.

OK - you need to look at overall profit margins, not dollars. It seems like you understand basic business so I'm glad you understand the business of business is making money.

Your suggestion is exactly what many cable companies are doing because of competition. The whole "network upgrade" is a gamble to spend money to make money. Just like the gamble Verizon is making with FiOS. I do like your line of thinking however and hope you are gunning for an officer level position.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: spidey07
More proof also that the all you can eat residential pricing model is going to end. The heavy users kill any profit. If you really need that much bandwidth/capacity then just pay for it.

Except unused bandwidth doesn't benefit anyone. This isn't gas or electricity or water where unused portions can be saved for other customers in the future. If it's not being used, it's just lost.

Hypothetical situation.

ISP has 95 users who use 5gb/month, and 5 users who use 50gb/month. All users currently charged $10/month.

Currently, the ISP makes $1000/month from 100 users.

ISP decides to set a 10GB bandwidth cap, and charge $1 for each GB over cap. The 50gb/month users all quit, and 15 of the "regular" users also quit just because they don't like thei dea of being charged the same amount of money for a limited service that was previously unlimited.

Now the ISP makes $800/month from 80 users, and has a bandwidth surplus. But WTF good does the bandwidth surplus do? The ISP can't save it, or package it, or resell it. The actual result is a loss of 20 customers and zero real gain.

The stupid ISPs will try caps, and fail. The smart ones will gain a lot of market share.