Bandwidth Caps Forcing Users To Police Their Own Household Internet Usage
from the just-what-the-entertainment-industry-wants dept
We've discussed in the past how broadband bandwidth caps can slow innovation by adding mental transaction costs to basic internet usage. People don't want to have to think about how much bandwidth any particular usage might take. They don't want to have to consider that if they click a particular link it might eat up a significant portion of their monthly allocation. There are some other issues as well. Mathew Ingram tells of his experience bumping up against bandwidth caps in Canada, in which he couldn't figure out what had happened:I have three teenage daughters who also download music, TV shows and so on. I figured someone had just gone a little overboard, and since it was close to the end of the month, I thought it wasn�t anything to be worried about. The next day, however, I went online and checked my usage (Rogers has an online tool that shows daily usage), and it said that I had used 121 GB more than my allotted amount for the month. In other words, I had used more than 100 GB in less than two days.So he felt forced to go track down what the issue was. At first (with prompting from Rogers tech support), he thought the issue might be his open WiFi, so he closed that down. He asked family members about their usage, and they all insisted they weren't doing much. However, just a few days into April, he was told that his connection had already used up the monthly allocation, leading to a second search, and the eventual discovery that one of his daughters had downloaded some TV shows, but left a file sharing program running in the background, which probably accounted for the extra bandwidth usage.
I just about spit my coffee all over the computer screen. How could I possibly have used that much? According to Rogers, I owed $181 in overage charges. Luckily there is a maximum extra levy of $50 a month (just think what it would cost if I was subject to usage-based billing).
In other words, he had to become his own local area network cop, to figure out how his own network was being used and for what. Now, I'm sure some will argue this is a good thing. They'll say that you should be responsible for understanding everything that goes through your router. And, of course, those who dislike file sharing will argue that this is a wonderful side benefit to these bandwidth caps. But, it really shows yet another pain in having bandwidth caps. It adds a lot more work to having an internet connection at home -- work that really shouldn't have to be done by someone who just wants to access the internet. Perhaps we'll end up with more sophisticated tools for people to track their home internet usage, but in the meantime, it seems a bit crazy to force everyone to be their own local area network traffic cops.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: bandwidth, broadband caps, policing
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The trolls must be wetting themselves. This one is so easy to abuse.
On a more serious note, I really don't see the point of ISPs offering up large bandwith, when users are limited in how they can use it. I mean, if the system allows a user to download 100GB of data in a two days, why is he capped in a way that does not allow that bandwidth to be used fully? If they are not willing to extend those caps, they might as well cut down on the bandwith.
But I guess fooling the customers is an easier (and more profitable) route.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Just imagine what would happen if the majors in the software industry began to collude with the telcos too. There is a lot of money to be made from caps, and despite claims to the contrary, which are that it's really about curbing those who use more than the ISP's can provide, maximizing revenue is what caps are really all about. The temptation to abuse consumers is just too great, and so at some point they shall be.
I use a nifty little gadget in Windows 7 which allows me to monitor bandwidth in real-time. It can also track how much I've used since I last rebooted in addition to the total bandwidth used since being installed. Oddly, it doesn't provide for monthly tracking. Thankfully my ISP doesn't have caps so it isn't really an issue. What I have noticed though is that Windows 7 has a heck of a lot more processes which require internet connectivity than Windows XP ever did. Folks may think they aren't using any bandwidth when their computer is just idling, but the reality is that this latest and greatest operating system from Microsoft is very... I guess the best term would be "leaky". What are people supposed to do about that? The only sure fire thing I can think of is to turn off the modem, but this has the side effect of breaking some of the features in Windows 7, security updates being a big one.
On a side note, I really hate how overage charges keep being referred to as UBB (usage based billing) when it is clearly punitive based billing. The ISP's keep comparing it to other metered bills, such as gas and electricity. As far as I'm aware, at least here in Canada, you pay only for what you use and aren't punished for using some arbitrary amount the gas and electric companies consider to be too much. If internet billing were truly usage based, and based on the true cost of delivering bandwidth plus a reasonable and fair profit, ISP's everywhere would declaring bankruptcy as A) the average user consumes very little bandwidth, and B) the delivery cost per byte is somewhere in the fraction of a penny range. Thank goodness the likes of the CRTC, Bell, and Rogers have been stopped in their tracks, proving people really can make a difference if they work together and stand up for themselves. Hopefully we'll some day see people taking a stand against greedy ISP's in other countries, crushing the concept of UBB permanently once and for all along with their excuse for not investing in network upgrades like they should be doing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I do think that the current system is very much biased for the ISP's profits. But I think that they are scared of losing customers and so they wait until their competitor does it, that way they can monopolize the market.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
HD movie streaming
High quality movie streaming
Online gaming (including required patches, which can be 1Gb or more)
Games downloads through Wii/PS3/360 (including patches, sometimes 1Gb at a time)
iTunes purchases (sometimes close to 1Gb- games, videos, etc).
Online backup services such as Amazon's new music locker service and Dropbox
It can be quite easy for people to exceed bandwidth limits without realising it and the parents are usually the ones unwilling to monitor bandwidth or unaware that they should. They get hit with a large bill, and many parents are going to be more willing to cut off access completely than be faced with huge bills for not obeying some arcane rule. Especially considering that many of them will be incapable of administering a router and some thing like Irate Pirate's W7 tool won't monitor little Jimmy's PS3 patch downloads... Of course, that's not even considering infringing uses.
I'm with other users on here with the suggestion of throttling instead of charging for extra access. However, this doesn't encourage them to use the resulting profits to upgrade their networks, nor does it create them the same chance for easy profit...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"if the system allows a user to download 100GB of data in a two days, why is he capped in a way that does not allow that bandwidth to be used fully? If they are not willing to extend those caps, they might as well cut down on the bandwith."
The first part makes sense.
His bandwidth cap is so large that he cannot even use it himself. Why would a company make such a cap?
The second part not so much.
"If they, (assuming the company), are not willing to extend those caps" Why would they need to extend the caps when he can't finish using the bandwidth?
"they might as well cut down on bandwidth"
?
Just lol this stupid response
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bandwidth caps?
In 1977 I only had to pay attention to the number of hours I spent on-line. Boeing and The Source only charged for minutes, not data.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bandwidth caps?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No, it most certainly does not seem crazy! People need to stop using up so much bandwidth so the telcos can use it to...uh...well, hell, what DO they need all that bandwidth for?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
to fight terrorism.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I agree with you
I hope that someday, politicians will see the truth. The bandwidth don't cost that and the prices are fixed by the telecom. It's as easy as that. It saddens me. I currently have 20GB left on 90GB for the rest of the month. So no, I ration my bandwidth for occasional YouTube videos. What can I do? Oh.. I could pay for bandwidth package to expand my bandwidth for the month. How's that fair huh?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I agree with you
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Don't wanna go over traffic caps? Buy a 15$ seedbox account. Don't want to have to police your ROUTER? Then police your COMPUTERS, especially when you have 3 kids. Tons of software will let you chose when your kids are allowed to do; and if you can't trust them to use their judgment, like this case, then use those tools...
So much for common sense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
What about the network hardware? The wires in the ground and the kit at the exchange? That delivers the bytes, and that costs something to install, maintain, and periodically upgrade.
I do not know what *particular* cost that adds up to, but it must cost *something*.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Are there maintenance costs? sure. But when you sell 'unlimited' you damned well better provide 'unlimited'. It's crazy to expect them to provide unlimited, which is why they try to get around 'unlimited' by capping people who actually use it.
It's all about managing expectations. If I have X amount of bandwidth available, I don't sell 'unlimited' and then complain that people are using too much. Sell less bandwidth such that the average usage * # of customers is below what you can provide. Period.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
What they do is like selling tickets to a concert that has seats for 1000 people. But instead of selling 1000 tickets, they sell 10,000 tickets and don't let them all see the entire show because those that try to get what they paid for are "hogging the seats". The caps are just ways to discourage you from enjoying the whole show so they can sell your seat to someone else (or several) whom only wants to see a small portion of the concert.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Suddenly the money that was good enough for the last 10 years doesn't cut it anymore? Strange.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
And to all of you who are thinking about bitching about downloading TV shows, I would like to point you to Vodo. I download TV shows from there all the time, and nothing is illegal. So go screw yourselves to allowing a monopoly the chance to destroy a rising industry.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
If your telco advertised in those terms, they'd never get another customer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That's an average of slightly over 600 KB/s uploaded, right? And they still had bandwidth to spare? Dang. Where I live, the only ISP in town has an absolute maximum of about 40 KB/s for uploading. At least we don't have bandwidth caps yet...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
It may only be 300 KB/s, which is still fast, but reasonable for a cable modem. My ISP doesn't have a clue as to how to monitor bandwidth, and thus they usually count the data twice. So essentially, the 200GB cap per month really is just 100GB and they even count unsolicited traffic inbound and broadcasts.
I've shown them a number of times my traffic analysis from bandwidthd, which shows all traffic through my router (as well as traffic which was sent to my router and dropped,) and every time they tell me that I am over, I am usually half way through my allowance according to my router. And since I have no control over what is sent to me unsolicited, SMB traffic from my neighbors make up a good 10%-20% of the traffic bandwidthd shows (no smb traffic comes from me to the network, as I only let a few ports and protocols out.)
It has gotten so bad at times that I have to drop the internal interface on my router to prevent myself from going over (at which point I get a nastygram from my ISP telling me that they will block me, but so far, I have yet to be blocked.) Even then, I get flooded with traffic, but at least I am not contributing to my traffic (and the ISP has less of a leg to stand on when they do block me.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
The guy clearly was negligent. Period. He knew about the caps. Everyone does. Plus, I pay the amount I pay for the speed, not for the quantity. I prefer getting my TV ep in 2 minutes than 30. I know about my caps. And if I'm close to busting it, I buy the 10$ package that gives me an extra 30GB.
And, as stated, 15$ seedbox accounts with unlimited downloads... and avoid all these problems.
And what do you expect when you have 3 kids? This guy would have complained no matter what. In the dial up days, with no limits, I had 2 siblings and our parents HAD to make sure we didn't do anything crazy or stupid. So because this guy is lazy as a parent he starts crying out wolf. Boohoo.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Wow ... you're an asshole.
So anytime someone has a programming running in the background on their computer they're a "lazy parent" now?
In the early days of the g-mail desktop client, which basically does nothing but pop-up a little message when you have new mail there was a bug which caused the service to query every second at around 4kb per query. Assuming you leave your computer on all the time, it would consume about 10 GB per month. But I guess if someones kid had the g-mail notifier they would have been a "lazy parent."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Your gmail argument is flawed. You can STILL monitor bandwidth usage through your ISP. Again, YOU installed gmail notifier and are aware of the implications.
If you let your kids go do whatever the hell they want without any supervision, sorry but you're not only a lazy parent, you're a bad one.
And (assuming he's using windows - safe assumption) he could have just created normal accounts with limited installation access to monitor what the kids are doing.
He got lazy. Period. If it makes me an ass for pointing it out, then I'm an ass. He's a bigger ass for not taking care of it the first time then complaining about it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No Netflix on that ISP, for sure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Wrong. That is exactly what this argument is about. And caps are not justified by any sane definition of justified.
And if I'm close to busting it, I buy the 10$ package that gives me an extra 30GB.
So how much did it cost your ISP for that 30GB? I'll give you the answer: Pennies or less.
And your ISP is selling you that bandwidth at a 1000% or more markup.
In a truly free market, I'd have no problem with one company charging ridiculous markup. But the broadband market is anything but a free market. Many places its a monopoly or duopoly. I have no choice in my broadband providers unless you consider who is less bad; "MassivelyGreedyLegacyCorporation1" or "AbsurdlyGreedyLegacyCorporation2" a choice.
You want to change my mind? Give me evidence. Give me data that shows I'm wrong about the absurdity of caps. Otherwise your words mean nothing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The city gives you X litres of water per year. After that, you need to pay X amount per litre. You know that. You buy a pool. You exceed your usage, you bitch at the city?
And if you're not happy with your ISP over-billing you, go with one of that many that offer unmetered.
I'm sorry but if you can't get that, then it's just a waste time. There were alternatives, you knew about the problem originally, yet you went with it, abused it, then you dare complain about it? *sigh*
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
WTF don't you understand here?
There are no other options.
I have the choice of two and only two broadband providers. One already has caps. The other is actively working to implement them. Oh, and one of them is also getting a bill pushed through my state legislature to make it impossible for a city to setup their own alternative ISP.
Your water analogy might work if water wasn't a scarce resource. It is. Bits going down a wire have a near zero marginal cost and are not a scarce resource.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The situation is the same for ISPs. Now there are nuances that differentiate the water and telecommunications industries, but the basic idea is the same: start-up costs are huge, so the only way to make money is to reduce the cost per gallon or bit by serving as many customers as possible with the given infrastructure. In almost all other industries that favor what has been called "natural monopolies," the service provided has a rate based on the amount consumed by the customer. In the case of Internet, we have been blessed with umetered usage, since customers used to founding value of unfettered access would object to usage-based billing. However, that business model is unsustainable, at least in the eyes of the ISPs.
It would be great if people only used what they needed, but knowing human nature that would not work. We do not get billed based on usage, so our usage simply grows and grows. You could argue that the "mains" fiber optic cable bring service is very large; it is, but in order to pay for the cost of buying and then entrenching that cable it must serve as many customers and comfortably possible. The easiest solution to this problem is to meter usage, that is to give users incentive to "conserve" this most vital of resources.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
There's at least 4 things wrong with this moronic comparison, but I'm sure you know that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Other Direction
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Other Direction
When I had rogers that what I did... TB a month. Was great.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cop
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Cop
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
always been
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: always been
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: always been
Agreed on the rest, though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: always been
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: always been
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
same here
Just last week one day was almost 6gb. Seems someone in the house downloaded a free demo of 4gb. It was a bad game to boot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: same here
One way around this would be for ISP's to set up mirrors (copies) of content, such as game demos, free software, legal videos, etc, on local servers that are not counted towards your usage. Some Australian ISP's have done this and their users appreciate it greatly! Maybe the ISP's up in Canada could look into doing something like this too?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: same here
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: same here
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
i am a geek...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: i am a geek...
Fiber doesn't grow on trees, you know.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bandwidth caps vs speed
This is equivalent to a 38 kilobyte/second connection.
That is, if he were using his connection 24/7, he would not be able to use more than 38 kilobytes per second.
But what if he uses it only 8 hours a day (turning off the router when not in use)? The result is then 115 kilobytes per second.
The best way to not go above the bandwidth caps, then, is to limit your connection speed to 38 kilobyte/second in your router. Of course, this means that, with this cap, connections above 300 kbps are useless, so you can even save money by going to a cheaper connection (and not need to cap in your router, since the lower speed already prevents you from going over the cap). You can do the same calculation for other usage scenarios.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Policing his own network
Did you REALLY inetionally put this in for a laugh? You really can't be claiming that we should not be responsible for our own computers and network?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Policing his own network
> in for a laugh? You really can't be
> claiming that we should not be responsible
> for our own computers and network?
Do you do this yourself now? Do you even have any clue what it would take for you to implement this for yourself? Do you think the average consumer has any hope of repeating this?
This sort of thing is trivial to track once you get the right tools in place. The catch is getting the right tools in place. Unfortunately, consumer grade router products tend to completely ignore these sorts of features.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Policing his own network
I think he's quite serious. I'm not sure who he thinks should be responsible for what happens on the internet. Apparently, it's nobody. Not the ISPs, not the infringers, and not any subscribers who might have infringement under their own roof.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
I'm not sure where it's been argued that the actual infringers (i.e. people actually offering pirated material, not people who download them) should not be held responsible. Just that this cannot be a strategy all by itself, and there's ways to build a business whereby "piracy" does not harm you. I'm also confused as to where the infringer is being addressed here - I only see service providers being penalised for the actions of 3rd parties and the ISP having found a way to make a tasty profit in the process.
It's also depressingly predictable how quickly people have derailed this thread into bitching about downloading again, without noting that this situation could easily have occurred with perfectly legal content. There's issues at hand here that have nothing to do with illegal or infringing actions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
If you're going to set yourself up as a FUDbuster, it would help for you to not lie about what I have said.
Otherwise, it makes you look like a FUD spreader.
I didn't say no one should be responsible. Individuals are still responsible for what they do. What I pointed out was having the connection subscriber be responsible for traffic on their own local network does not make sense. That's not the same thing as saying no one should be responsible, and either you know that, or you have no business commenting on this topic.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
Otherwise, it makes you look like a FUD spreader.
I didn't say no one should be responsible. Individuals are still responsible for what they do. What I pointed out was having the connection subscriber be responsible for traffic on their own local network does not make sense. That's not the same thing as saying no one should be responsible, and either you know that, or you have no business commenting on this topic.
My apologies if I misrepresented you.
I still don't follow you, though. If the subscriber is not responsible for what his children do on the internet, then who is? The children? There is a reason that parents can be held liable for the actions of their children.
Do you really not believe that a subscriber is responsible for the actions of those he authorizes to use his subscription? I might agree if we were talking about unauthorized use, but that's not the case here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Policing his own network
I police my home network, my office network an many of my customers networks as well.
-------
As for consumer grade routers ignoring this feature, that's not the providers problem now is it? Seems that if consumers voiced their opinions about this feature then the routers would begin to support it. Hell once the consumer routers began supporting it then maybe the commercial market would make it more user friendly too.
If a user sign's a contract with caps on the amount of usage it's THEIR responsibility to abide by the contract, not to bitch and moan that they can't manage to control the usages of their own computers and their family members.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
Well done, you're part of the small minority of home users who know what they're doing and are capable of effectively policing a network off their own back without ISP or other assistance. That places you in a *very* small minority, from my experience.
"As for consumer grade routers ignoring this feature"
"Ignore" and "are completely unaware that it exists in the first place" are not the same thing.
"If a user sign's a contract with caps on the amount of usage it's THEIR responsibility to abide by the contract"
...and if they're unaware of such a cap (such as many people who signed up for an "unlimited" plan.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
I police my home network, my office network an many of my customers networks as well."
Why boast? I'm sure that takes no skill at all, since according to you, any average internet user can do it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Policing his own network
For the most part I agree with you on this, but, when the ISP sells "unlimited" bandwidth and changes the contract midstream (and gets your "signature" by saying "continued use of our service constitutes your agreement") this becomes very much like an EULA agreement with a software purchase which have been proven (I think) to be nonbinding contracts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Policing his own network
Zune
360
Wii
PS3
Dash
?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A lot of our ISPs are finally moving away (slowly) from this model and are starting to offer truly unlimited options for heavy users! I guess this is down to competition in the marketplace.
According to my ISP, I used 284GiB of bandwidth in march - and I would say that sounds about right!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Realization
I really hope someone can come in to challenge the ISPs.
Though, I have to think LightSquared might be a contender.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Do you think that he will tell his teen aged daughters to stop downloading music, movies and tv shows? No, he's going to tell them to make sure thy close uTorrent once they are done.
So really, it's just a way for the internet companies to bend to the will of the entertainment industry all the while padding their own coffers with extra cash from so called 'heavy users'. But the problem doesn't go away...if it's a problem to begin with.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bandwidth Caps Forcing Users To Police
It will also stop me from spending lots of time on starcraft. the pain will come from not being able to download from my music pool.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bandwidth Caps Forcing Users To Police
Really enjoyed when they where like "What, why do you want to switch"... "because i signed up for unlimited, and you saw fit to change it to capped, after you sold it as Unlimited, so please find a bridge and jump"...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Unfortunately, most consumers are stuck with a monopoly provider for last-mile broadband that's tied to video delivery and is offered with scant competition. These usage limits are primarily intended to thwart competition from video streaming sites and protect the video delivery monopolies for as long as possible.
We're seeing Big Cable fighting this battle from both sides. On the one hand, they're making it tougher for content delivery networks to gain access to their downstream paths, and on the other, they're limiting the amount of streaming end-users can do. For ISPs with video delivery businesses, this is part of a plan to make cord-cutting harder and to slow the inevitable shift from cable to streaming as the predominant video delivery mechanism.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"To help avoid $50 in overage fees, please sign up for eHomeWatch for $9.99/mo."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wow... wait to knock down the strawman there at the end. I don't know who's arguing that, but boy you showed them.
"Perhaps we'll end up with more sophisticated tools for people to track their home internet usage, but in the meantime, it seems a bit crazy to force everyone to be their own local area network traffic cops."
Indeed - if you're going to be metered, you should be able to easily see the meter.
After Tim's last article on the subject, I argued that tiered pricing based on total usage makes more sense than tiered pricing based on the width of the pipe.
Note that the guy says:
"Luckily there is a maximum extra levy of $50 a month"
That's a lot more fair than just charging the extra crapload of money. I still think it could be more fair than that.
Set up 3 or 4 tiers. The bottom tier is $15/mo. If you break the cap into the next tier (say, $20/mo) you just pay the price of the next tier. That would be more fair. Have the top tier be unlimited.
If you want to encourage the big spenders to sign up for the highest tier do one of two things: (1) give a discount for signing up for a higher tier or (2) charge a "levy" each time you break into a higher tier. The only difference between those two options is semantics - either way, if you know you're a big user, you save money by staying on the top tier.
Again, that's just my idea and I'm just some guy. My point, though, is that there is lots of middle ground between the system we have now (pay for the width of the pipe) and the worst case scenario (pay cellphone-like overages when you break your cap).
As the behavior of the "light users" is changing, paying for the width of the pipe becomes a very unfair option.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
BS. The problem for "light user" isn't paying for the width of the pipe; the problem is that most ISPs still only have 1 tier of pricing and that tier has always been designed to extract the maximum amount of money possible.
If ISPs had tiered pricing the vast majority of their users would probably switch to the lowest tier (say 1 or 2 mbps) as long as it cost less that their current package. But that wouldn't fulfill the goal of making more money while doing less.
Any argument that pricing should be based on usage is made from ignorance. Anyone who understands networking understands why usage based billing is nonsense. How do you even begin to account for unavoidable traffic? If the ISP has traffic collision problems, or drops packets, does the user get charged twice for re-sending the data? ISPs regularly query the modems attached to their networks and the modems regularly send identifying information to ensure that the usage is authorized, does the user get charged for that usage? This kind of stuff may only add up to 10 or 20 MB per month, but if that pushes you just over the cap you end up paying 5 or 10 dollars.
The reality is that ISPs have made up a problem and offered a "solution" which increases their profits without increasing their costs. It's a money grab, plain and simple.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
the problem is that most ISPs still only have 1 tier of pricing
One ISP covering a couple of counties in Ohio isn't really indicative of the entire market. That said, this seems to be a good ISP with reasonable levels of service.
I live in Rochester, NY where we have TimeWarner cable and their is one option $54.95 a month for "up to 10 Mbsp". They have recently begun to offer additional options (to select customers) "up to 30 Mbsp" and "up to 50 Mbsp" but those are both more expensive and with their marketing weasel words you can't even be guaranteed that you are getting a better connection.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Which is exactly the point a LOT of people have missed! Between YouTube, iTunes, STEAM and various similar services, "light" users became "heavy" users over the last few years without even realising it!
I also notice that when the "Web Two Point Oh" slogan became trendy is when many of these companies started adding caps in America or Canada. Here in Australia ISP's (Telstra and Optus NOT included in this) who had previously only counted downloads, suddenly all switched to plans that count uploads. So in my opinion they did it to cash in on the "Web 2.0" bandwagon (incidentally, it should be Two Point Zero, or technically, just TWO, not "Two Point Oh")
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Nope, nobody's arguing that at all...
Oh wait:
http://twitter.com/#!/AdamThierer/status/57413900106338304
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mobile versions?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mobile versions?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hopefully Google will save us all with their upcoming high speed fiber network.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That being said, I don't think you can have it both ways. The article points out how silly it is to force users to police their own network, but of course, if the ISP starts policing (via application blocking or selective throttling), people scream just as loud. If you operate under the premise that the bandwidth is limited, then somebody needs to do the policing. I'd rather see the user be forced to do it, because then at least the ISP is taking a hands off, content-neutral approach.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
/s
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I tried to measure my bandwidth once...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How to keep track?
Usage caps are not going to make advertisers happy; smart users will install ad blocking extensions so that the ads don't even get loaded or shown.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: How to keep track?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: How to keep track?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
its your connection... you do have a responsibility to know whats happening on your connection. If you are pusing that much data you should find whats causing that to happen. If you dont know how to find it, then it becomes your job to find someone that can find it for you.
using this as an argument against caps is just about as valid as using piracy as an argument for caps... meaning neither are valid arguments to make.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
100 GB in less then two days
((2^30)*(100))/(60*60*48)=621378 bytes/s
that means you can blow through your entire "share" in approx 24 HD on demand movies(with avoiding the rest of the internet like the plague).
Course if this is 100 gigabits then his real limit is closer to 12.5 GB in a month, which I could get to by dl WOW once in a month.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Old Hat
Wildblue is supposed to be for home use, but just try it with a family and a 7.5GB monthly cap. I was the FAP Cop and resorted to ridiculous and stupid methods to keep usage down. Unplugging the modem at night, insisting no Youtube, tailoring email accounts NOT to download attachments of any sort, no graphics-heavy sites, blocking ads and popups...the list goes on. The "mental tax" on such a low cap is extremely high and we eventually determined it just wasn't worth it. $70 a month buys a lot of coffee at McDonalds and other free wifi spots.
We really ran into trouble when my daughter needed to take an online course -- with video -- to fulfill her HS grad requirements. I had to trim our usage even further, which is insane given we have four computers and all of them want Windows updates.
Low caps will kill internet growth, especially when it comes to cloud computing. Netflix and Steam? ROFLMAO, not a chance. You develop self-rationing patterns that become a nuisance quickly, and it gets easier to tell yourself that it's just not worth it.
And switching to another ISP? Some of us don't have that option. Period.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Then Wait a few months, and reinstate.
The join/disconnection costs are what costs ISPs the most. They require the most labor, the most human interaction, and they cost the ISP the most.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
the only reason caps are being introduced is so ISPs can get more customers and thereby increase the outrageous profits they are already making at no cost to themselves. it costs them no more if you download 50gig or 100gig. all just another excuse for a money-making scam of the public. i really dont understand why the internet simply isn't shut down. ISPs ripping the public off with caps and extortionate prices, the entertainment industries scared shitless that they are gonna lose $5 and the governments scared someone is going to find out what dastardly schemes they are up to, who is being monitored and spill the beans, we are all on a definite loser and might as well give up!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hmm.. last time I heard that phrase was from a cellular service that kept turning my phone off and claiming I was almost $400 dollars behind on my bill.
The bill nobody could explain.
Finally sat down and went through mine with a friend. Turns out the phone company had over billed me from the beginning. Month after month. Assessing over use charges on calls that should have been free/nights/weekends/cellular2cellular.
When the dust settled I had a seven month credit.
Caps, limits, plans.. call it what you want but over billing is usually what you'll get.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Application updates... urgh?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
boo, hoo
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: boo, hoo
It's like selling 10,000 tickets to a concert that only fits 1,000 people. They're banking on you not staying for the entire show, so others can take your space when you leave. But not only that, they use tactics to encourage you to not stay for the entire show by enforcing caps on your time there. It would cost money to expand the venue to make room for that many people, but they get more profit if they just sell it to more people than they can serve, but give them less than they expect to get.
What if you went to a restaurant and ordered a drink which was advertised "up to" a 16 oz of soda for a fixed price? If you're paying for 16 oz of soda, you'd demand that you get 16 oz of soda!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: boo, hoo
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ordinary utililties are prime examples, as are charges from some financial institutions, etc.
Of course, I would be quite displeased if I was to learn that data was being calculated erroneously for any of my accounts, not because I cannot rectify same, but because it takes my time away from other matters I would prefer to pursue.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The connection to your area only has finite bandwidth, and if everyone is using as much as possible all the time (because they have no cap) performance is going to suck for everyone else. Caps aleviate this problem, and perhaps shift more reposinsibility onto the ISPs to actually provide enough bandwidth to match what they sell.
And in the end it's all moot anyway: competition will see caps increase, all the way to infinity - exactly what's happened in Australia.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
bandwidth cap
I still don't like the implementation of overuse overages currently in use.
I would prefer:
If you are over your usage for the month....
The default behavior is to slow your internet service down to 768/128 until the end of the cycle, or you pay for the next bandwidth level for the remainder of the month.
That way you never get hit with overage changes, unless you request them. And those people who don't know what is going on with their networks can properly secure them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Network cops
So long, internet, I will miss you!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Internet is a utility.
Utilities, whether it be power, water, or telecommunications, have huge barriers to entry, such as network externalities, start-up costs, and competition is cut-throat. Let's look at the example of England's privately owned water utilities during the Industrial Revolution. There were many companies, and profit margins were razor-thin. Wherever the coverage overlapped, opportunity costs soared, as the competition would leave the pipelines underutilized. As a result, in the UK modern water utilities are still private, but with tightly regulated areas of operation and exclusivity periods. The telecommunications industry is favorable for what has been termed a "natural monopoly." Start-up costs are huge, and the only way to really increase profit margins (after all, businesses aim to make money) is to increase in size. But how are they related to utilities? It's all about barriers to entry.
This is not a recent development; let us go back in time, wayyyy back relative to the age of the US, all the way back to 1877 with the founding of the American Bell Telephone System. If start-up costs were so great, how did this small company survive, you may ask. The answer is, it had the great advantage of being the first telephone company. However, when competitors appeared after Alexander Bell's patent for the telephone expired in 1894, the company changed direction. It thrived in the early years, but once competitors arrived, the company, now AT&T,, was forced to change directions. Having the advantage of the early years, it had an extensive network all across America, and while competitors focused on building their local networks, AT&T was forcing competitors to cave by witholding access to their long-distance network. The concepts of peering, net-neutrality, and common carrier should come to mind.
The Bell system quickly grew, and after Kingsbury Commitment formalized the monoply (after all, it is much simpler to have everyone connected to a single, vast network rather than to many fragmented local networks) AT&T was able to simply buy market share in local phone companies and thus gain access to the customers of that area. More importantly, AT&T was not forced to interconnect its local networks of its subsidaries (which were connected to the rest of the US by AT&T's long distance network), and it did not have to interconnect with long distance competitors. I hope you see a trend here; competitors without nearly as much resources as AT&T were forced out because of the network effect: they had less customers than the Bell system, and since they could not interconnect in any way, they lost their competitive edge. The larger company wins. Whether this is bad or good is not for me to judge, but I do know that in return for quality of service and access to all of America, you would get one choice of phone and monthly equipment charges.
As you may know, the infrastructure for the Internet is heavily based on that of the telephone system. Why? The physical nature of the systems are the same: fluctuations in electromagnetic fields over transmission cables (first copper, now wireless, fiber, and beyond). It is much more efficient to use current infrastructure and build upon it than to build a new system from scratch. AT&T and other telecommunications companies did not have to buy expensive rights of way again (just like for railroads, a similarly monopolistic industry), and did not have to break ground again to lay new lines (most of the time). The costs of doing these things would have been enormous, just like it would be to lay power lines or water mains. Early on it was very simple; most Americans used dial-up, so existing infrastructure was mostly sufficient (of course other networking equipment such as routers, switches, amplifiers, etc. still had to be implemented, but was not nearly as expensive as laying new line). Remember that before AT&T broke up, many broadcasting companies depended on AT&T's infrastructure to deliver content to local stations . Technologies such as satellite relay enabled other companies to begin to compete. Finally, with the government having had enough of the dirty dealings AT&T did to preserve its huge monopoly, the Bell system broke up into many regional groups.
The regional groups became many of the phone and internet service providers for most of the country, and long distance competitors such as Sprint grew greatly. However, the biggest boost came from the telecommunications act of 1996, which most importantly forced interconnection of all networks, and allowed new entrants to the telecommunications industry to use infrastructure of the old Bell system as long as they needed to build up a network with good service.
At this point my knowledge begins fading; the telecommunications companies sell access to re-distributors, which sell access to ISPs, which sell access to each other and to their customers. By interconnecting, ISPs allow their customers to communicate with each other, and by cascading up to an ISP that is interconnected, either directly or indirectly to all other ISPs, that original ISP can form connections to virtually any computer as long as it is connected to that giant tree of interconnections we call the Internet. This is all built on top of the telecommunications industry, which is forced to carry this data. So you can consider ISPs provide access to the Layer 1&2 of the Internet or whatever you want to call this tangled mess, and the Layer 0 (there is no layer 0, but you could say it is the actual physical wire, signal, etc.) is formed by all the interconnections of the physical infrastructure of the telecommunications companies. Also, since telecommunications companies are highly likely to be selling internet access, or access to the infrastructure to resellers who sells physical access to ISPs (an example is Sprint, a huge telecommunications company that is also a Tier 1 ISP), the distinction between the owner of the lines and equipment and an ISP which simply provides access to a network built upon the lines is blurred.
This is an industry constantly in flux, but one that I have observed is that all of the regional telecommunications companies and ISPs behave in a rational manner: milk areas with little competition so as to subsidize more competitive rates in heavily contested areas. Ironically, the biggest threat facing these companies are municipal ISPs; because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, all ISPs have the ability to use existing infrastructure to be able to connect their local networks to the rest of the world. Thus ISPs run in a similar manner to those of public utilities are still able to provide good service at competitive rates. For example, one municipality, using private-sector loans, funded the laying of fiber-optic lines, and now residents pay $35/month for 10mbits/s where it would normally be 57. Because the rates are not subsidizing operations elsewhere, and because the ISP is allowed to use the outgoing lines that lead to the rest of the infrastructure in the US, after two-years the ISP is already profitable and paying back its loans. This made the area extremely competitive, forcing Time Warner to release more precious bandwidth to the area at lower prices (remember, ISPs still must pay for the transit of the data their customers send over the infrastructure for any company). Time Warner and other ISPs are countering with lawsuits and lobbying for legislation that would ban such ventures. (Here is the link to the story: http://www.dailytech.com/UPDATED+NC+Republicans+Fight+to+Ban+Municipal+Internet+Services/article2116 1.htm)
The confused organization of this response reflects my understanding of the nature of this industry, which I am still struggling to put together for a high school paper. Please forgive me; I wrote this to help collect my thoughts on the subject. If it helps one person understand our current situation, all of this work was worth it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]