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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
actually it was worse.. when traveling outside the US, all data was 3G only.
That's not a cap. I have an unlimited 3G data plan. how much more would I want on a phone? 3G is plenty fast.
oh.. 3G is like a slug compared to 4G.
Only sort of, since LTE is often faster than 4G and is 3G.
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@travisdh1 said:
@Dashrender said:
Add to that that we now pay for bandwidth on metered connections again (through mobile carriers) we users don't want to pay for something we didn't ask for.
I beg to disagree about only mobile carriers having caps. DSL Reports.com has all kinds of stories on usage caps being placed on fixed lines all the time. Basically anywhere in the US that only cable and DSL is available will be capped soon, if it's not already.
You're correct, many land line type ISPs now also have caps, but those caps are not hit by typical usage, so I wasn't counting them.
The caps on mobile data are pretty easy to hit, especially if mobile is the only data you have.
now, with things like Netflix and Youtube at 4K, those caps on Landlines will start being a real problem.
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@Dashrender said:
You're correct, many land line type ISPs now also have caps, but those caps are not hit by typical usage, so I wasn't counting them.
I've done lots of calculations on that, and it's my opinion that any connection with a cap needs to be advertised at the speed you can actually go without exceeding said cap. I know I'm insane and banging my head against a brick wall on this one, but it's what I think. IE: 300GB/month cap, advertised as a 112kb/sec connection.
Glad the local cable company at home is still on the smaller/regional side and doesn't cap yet. Even with the slow 10MB connection we'd blow through the cap in days.
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@travisdh1 said:
I've done lots of calculations on that, and it's my opinion that any connection with a cap needs to be advertised at the speed you can actually go without exceeding said cap. I know I'm insane and banging my head against a brick wall on this one, but it's what I think. IE: 300GB/month cap, advertised as a 112kb/sec connection.
All that would serve to do, though, is make things confusing for everyone. Power users nor typical users would be able to get the info that they need to make a good decision on buying. Instead of exposing things, it would obscure it even more.
Nothing is more open an honest than stating the speed and the cap. The truth is always the best answer.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@travisdh1 said:
I've done lots of calculations on that, and it's my opinion that any connection with a cap needs to be advertised at the speed you can actually go without exceeding said cap. I know I'm insane and banging my head against a brick wall on this one, but it's what I think. IE: 300GB/month cap, advertised as a 112kb/sec connection.
All that would serve to do, though, is make things confusing for everyone. Power users nor typical users would be able to get the info that they need to make a good decision on buying. Instead of exposing things, it would obscure it even more.
Nothing is more open an honest than stating the speed and the cap. The truth is always the best answer.
yeah I agree. I wouldn't want the line speed to be capped at 112 Kb/s to make sure I didn't have a chance of going over my cap. Also, rarely does even a power user use the same amount of bandwidth all day long. When they are waiting for a download to happen, they want max speed, when they aren't they could care less.
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What I'm curious about is - are businesses given caps?
Sure my 100/20 pipe costs me $300/month at my office - but there are no caps that I'm aware of, so I'm golden. If the ISPs really have bandwidth issues, they then just need to raise their rates...
oh but they are, that's right, they've instituted caps, go over and pay more or get cut off.
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What ISPs in the US are introducing data caps? I though Comcast was testing it in certain markets but wasn't deployed nationwide yet.
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@Dashrender said:
What I'm curious about is - are businesses given caps?
Sure my 100/20 pipe costs me $300/month at my office - but there are no caps that I'm aware of, so I'm golden. If the ISPs really have bandwidth issues, they then just need to raise their rates...
Sure, we've bought lines with caps. Businesses have used them for years as they are often how you get the best lines.
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@coliver said:
What ISPs in the US are introducing data caps? I though Comcast was testing it in certain markets but wasn't deployed nationwide yet.
Comcast and Cox both have. They are rarely hard caps, but I've read claims around the net that people have been cut off because they were at like 500GB or more.
Cox for example does have it in their contracts now. The higher your plan, the higher your cap. Though I'm still not sure how strict they are enforcing it.
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@coliver said:
What ISPs in the US are introducing data caps? I though Comcast was testing it in certain markets but wasn't deployed nationwide yet.
I know AT&T is doing it here in Florida.....: (
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@coliver said:
What ISPs in the US are introducing data caps? I though Comcast was testing it in certain markets but wasn't deployed nationwide yet.
They are all playing with it.
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@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
What ISPs in the US are introducing data caps? I though Comcast was testing it in certain markets but wasn't deployed nationwide yet.
They are all playing with it.
Aren't data caps sort of a 2000s era type of thing? I know some used to have hard limits. Knowing Americans, I can't imagine it lasting that long, since it didn't the first time. Plus rate limiting is a lot better. It's better to make someone go slower than to cut them off completely. This is a hugely popular thing in places like Australia where people apparently don't know any better (plus the rates are higher than hell).
That or, the even smarter thing is, to create a pseudo-cap, where you charge for over that, which is what Cox does. Cox does not have a cut off cap, I know this because I've gone into the TB range, and they just charge me more.
Is it better to make more money or to potentially lose a customer over bandwidth? I mean, bandwidth, is it 1999? Seriously? It's not that big of a commodity anymore.
Can you imagine customers who have kids that torrent or something, or watch a lot of youtube, suddenly mid-month can't use Internet until the next month? Yeah right.
Comcast is the only US company I know of which has set hard limits before (like 10 years ago) and nobody else was stupid enough to duplicate this model.
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@tonyshowoff said:
Aren't data caps sort of a 2000s era type of thing? I know some used to have hard limits. Knowing Americans, I can't imagine it lasting that long..
I'd say the opposites. Americans are very, very accepting of these things.
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@tonyshowoff said:
That or, the even smarter thing is, to create a pseudo-cap, where you charge for over that, which is what Cox does. Cox does not have a cut off cap, I know this because I've gone into the TB range, and they just charge me more.
You have gotten used to the high bandwidth world in the east of Europe. America still has a lot of problems with bandwidth.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
Aren't data caps sort of a 2000s era type of thing? I know some used to have hard limits. Knowing Americans, I can't imagine it lasting that long..
I'd say the opposites. Americans are very, very accepting of these things.
Really? No Internet for the rest of the month? Mom can't pay the bills, dad can't look up porno. Comcast dropped it once before. Meanwhile they're paying $40 a month? That's definitely the kind of thing Americans get mad about.
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@tonyshowoff said:
Really? No Internet for the rest of the month? Mom can't pay the bills, dad can't look up porno. Comcast dropped it once before. Meanwhile they're paying $40 a month? That's definitely the kind of thing Americans get mad about.
It's mostly "pay more" caps. There are stories of AT&T customers getting hit with massive bills (that they were idiots and were warned about.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
Really? No Internet for the rest of the month? Mom can't pay the bills, dad can't look up porno. Comcast dropped it once before. Meanwhile they're paying $40 a month? That's definitely the kind of thing Americans get mad about.
It's mostly "pay more" caps. There are stories of AT&T customers getting hit with massive bills (that they were idiots and were warned about.)
Wasn't that mobile data?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
Really? No Internet for the rest of the month? Mom can't pay the bills, dad can't look up porno. Comcast dropped it once before. Meanwhile they're paying $40 a month? That's definitely the kind of thing Americans get mad about.
It's mostly "pay more" caps. There are stories of AT&T customers getting hit with massive bills (that they were idiots and were warned about.)
Pay more caps is a different story all together, I'd say those are data limits. A cap is, like I said, Australia where people pay $50 a month for 10GB of crappy Internet service that cuts off after a week for the rest of the month. that's an exaggeration, but it is pretty insanely high like that. So far haven't talked to any Australian which didn't think this was common elsewhere, they really don't know they're getting screwed.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
Aren't data caps sort of a 2000s era type of thing? I know some used to have hard limits. Knowing Americans, I can't imagine it lasting that long..
I'd say the opposites. Americans are very, very accepting of these things.
I wouldn't say we are accepting of these things, I would say we are pretty forced, ISPs have done a pretty good job of becoming a monopoly in places.
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
Really? No Internet for the rest of the month? Mom can't pay the bills, dad can't look up porno. Comcast dropped it once before. Meanwhile they're paying $40 a month? That's definitely the kind of thing Americans get mad about.
It's mostly "pay more" caps. There are stories of AT&T customers getting hit with massive bills (that they were idiots and were warned about.)
Wasn't that mobile data?
That one story, yes. But the US has lower rates, hard caps, soft caps, mobile, non-mobile.... it's all different than in Europe.
