Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion
from the of-course-not dept
For years, the key rationale given by broadband providers for implementing data caps was that it was the only way they could deal with "congestion." Of course, for years, independent researchers showed that this was bogus, and there was no data crunch coming. If you actually caught a technologist from a broadband provider, rather than a business person or lobbyist, they'd quietly admit that there was no congestion problem, and that basic upgrades and network maintenance could easily deal with the growth in usage. But, of course, that took away the broadband providers' chief reason for crying about how they "need" data caps. The reality, of course, is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers -- in a market that is already quite profitable. But if they can hide behind the claims that they need to do this to deal with congestion, they can justify it to regulators and (they hope) the public.Of course, enough people have been calling this explanation out as completely bogus that it appears that even the broadband companies' own lobbyists may finally be dropping this line of reasoning. Former FCC boss Michael Powell, who is now the cable industry's chief lobbyist (president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association -- NCTA), has finally admitted caps aren't about congestion:
Michael Powell told a Minority Media and Telecommunications Association audience that cable's interest in usage-based pricing was not principally about network congestion, but instead about pricing fairness...Asked by MMTC president David Honig to weigh in on data caps, Powell said that while a lot of people had tried to label the cable industry's interest in the issue as about congestion management. "That's wrong," he said. "Our principal purpose is how to fairly monetize a high fixed cost."Of course, as Broadband Reports notes, Powell is jumping from one myth (congestion) to another (fairness) that is just as ridiculous. If it was true, we'd see at least some prices going down. But we don't.
Except the argument that usaged pricing is about fairness has been just as repeatedly debunked. If usage caps were about "fairness," carriers would offer the nation's grandmothers a $5-$15 a month tier that accurately reflected her twice weekly, several megabyte browsing of the Weather Channel website. Instead, what we most often see are low caps and high overages layered on top of already high existing flat rate pricing, raising rates for all users. Does raising rates on a product that already sees 90% profit margins sound like "fairness" to you?Data caps are about one thing only: increasing profits for the broadband providers, who already have massive control over the market with limited competition. It's nice to see them give up on one myth (even if we still see pundits repeating it without criticism), but it would be nice if we could get past the others as well.
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: congestion, data caps, michael powell
Companies: ncta
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Other than that my network would be set up to deal with the entirety of the bw needed at peak times and if people wanted to keep their subscribed bw maxed 24/7 then so be it.
Also, PLEASE could you freaking ISPs give us more upload speed? You know, kind of sucks to have over 10mbit and still upload at 1mbit max when you have increasingly larger videos and files to sync with your cloud drive.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
If it was much easier to run private servers, and use federation to spread the load, it would be much harder to censor the Internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Is there some documentation anywhere on this? For the lazy such as myself? I just googled but help is always appreciated.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
They have since begun bonding channels on cable to increase upload speed. DSL can use Annex M, but few companies in the US consider it worth the effort. VDSL2 can push out some nice upload speeds, as obviously can fiber.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I am old enough to remember people complaining about this almost from the get go. It wasn't an accident.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Now Fiber is fully capable of being symmetrical. Yet it most often is not. That is partly intentional to combat servers. Although even companies that offer symmetrical, specifically Google Fiber, do not allow servers. Go figure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
> Actually, a lot of it has to do with systems not originally designed for uploading (e.g., cable, satellite)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Also, this is limited by technology - your physical link to your ISP has a finite amount of spectrum. If you have 10Mb down and 1Mb up, in order to get 10Mb up, you'd have to drop to 1Mb down. It has absolutely nothing to do with 'censorship' and more with the laws of physics.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Apparently, all this supply and demand stuff has been garbage almost since its inception.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This point strikes me as a red herring.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I didn't know this until you posted it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
actually maintaining the lines is far more expensive than paying for the bandwidth to travel across them.
of course, this is what they all want to do anyways, because its extremely lucrative to charge more for what doesnt cost anything at all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
For instance for cable service using DOCSIS 3.0 the Max speed per channel in the US is for 42.88 Mbps/per channel for Download and for Upload is only 30.72 Mbps/per channel.
DOCIS 3.0 allows up to 8 download channels per node, but only 4 upload channels per node. That puts throughput per node at 343.04Mbps Down and 122.88 Mbps Up.
Additionally cable providers may choose to use fewer upload (or download) channels so that they can provide more HD content, such as On Demand programming, but they will normally use 8 (or more) download channels to provide the best experience for the majority of users.
So there are actual technical reasons why your upload speed is restricted.
Because the majority of users don't need a lot of upload bandwidth it would make since to have a fixed rate for download (always at max available speed) and tiered pricing for upload speed increases. Say 2Mbps, 5Mbps and 10Mbps, that way you are paying for what is the choke point on the network.
Also in support of not charging a premium for download speed, most major ISP's have caching to prevent having to actually fetch pages off the internet, instead they fetch a cached copy off their own network. Many streaming services such as Netflix, Akamai... have equipment located at the ISP so that content only has to travel the last mile and not across the globe.
Just something to consider.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I couldn't care less about cable television, and would go to an internet-only provider in a heartbeat if that were an option. In my area, anyway, it's not.
I do wish it were possible to get real broadband without having to concede anything to cable television usage. Real upload speeds, no need to have a basic cable TV package I never use, etc. It would be great.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Well yes and no.
Yes, DOCSIS is an international telecommunications standard, and design considerations do of course tend to favor the industries they serve.
No, because many of the design limitations are required by technical limitations of the existing infrastructure. For cable systems, think of it like this. You are in a huge auditorium and there is one mic at a podium and a PA system. The Downstream bandwidth is like being at the podium and using the PA, it is easy for everyone to hear what is said. The upstream is like being out in the audience and shouting a question. It can be hard for the presenter to hear and nearly impossible if too many are yelling at once. Could those limitations be overcome, certainly, but not with the existing infrastructure. You would have to give everyone access to the same PA as the presenter, and then you are still limiting how many can effectively talk at once.
If AT&T were smart they would rip out every bit of copper and install fiber to every home, they could then compete directly with cable and offer many additional services as well. What they chose to do with UVerse was leave the copper for the last mile and set up nodes connected via fiber for the backhaul. This means that they are still constrained by the limitations of twisted pair copper. It also means that they only choose to serve densely populated areas where they can get the highest return on investment.
"I do wish it were possible to get real broadband without having to concede anything to cable television usage. Real upload speeds, no need to have a basic cable TV package I never use, etc. It would be great."
I too would love to be able to get internet only and have many options where I live. But that is not likely to happen unless the government mandates sharing of the infrastructure and allows competition. If they don't mandate the sharing of the infrastructure there is no way to compete with the existing monopoly, the startup cost simply kill any incentive that there might be.
Satellite can compete with cable ONLY because they don't need to build out infrastructure in each location. AT&T can only competes by leveraging its existing infrastructure. The reason is share holders only care about the next dividend and even though fiber to the home would be a slam dunk for AT&T long term, the short term pain would cause investors to flee. See Verizon for details, they tried it and abandoned the idea.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Bazingaa...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: Ninja on Jan 23rd, 2013 @ 5:38am
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Upload Speeds
I'm working on components for DOCSIS 3.1 systems.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Now, once fiber optics are run to more homes, you will likely see an increase in upload speeds.
Problem is, most ISPs don't see the need for fiber yet, but they're slowly doing it anyway.
Most cable companies are already fiber to the neighborhood, and so are most DSL/phone companies. That last few thousand feet is where the vast majority of bottleneck is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: Ninja on Jan 23rd, 2013 @ 5:38am
1. Having the bandwidth available for every user to max their connection is not economically feasible. Wholesale bandwidth raw costs are about a buck a meg. That's before we pay to get the bandwidth to your house which can add about 5-10 bucks easily. So that 20 meg home connection has a wholesale cost to the ISP of about $25. Now we have to pay for staff. Network hardware etc etc etc. this is why we use oversell. Generally we oversell by 6-20. Some providers do more.
Regarding upload; it's available. Traditional technologies like DSL and cable aren't designed for symmetry because most users are downloading. That usage pattern is changing though. So many providers ( my company included) have begun to offer service that runs more to the symmetrical. We offer 30x30 for 99/month right now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Response to: Ninja on Jan 23rd, 2013 @ 5:38am
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Caps are like
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Total Internet Solution
I have always been miffed at the upload cap, as it is the primary reason a good web site needs to be hosted anywhere other than in your home and maybe a friend's house for backup.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
cord cutters
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Eastern Europe
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Eastern Europe
http://www.adamo.es/en/blog/adamo-brings-100-mb-internet-via-ftth-to-10-000-homes-in-lleid a/
Symmetrical. Out government and our business leaders are getting rich off of us by doing crappy work and creating laws against improvement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Eastern Europe
in Eastern Europe, you mean places like Romania and Slovakia where people barely make enough money to live, they don't get anything that big.
Closest Europe has, if I remember is 200Mb/s and that is literally only in huge cities such as London, Berlin, Paris and Edinburgh to name a few.
We don't have 1Gbit internet yet, maybe in a couple of years once the Google thing picks up, but not soon.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Eastern Europe
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Local politicians restrict the number of ISP's to one or two major providers.... thru needless licensing/regulation rules. Result is a monopoly or semi-monopoly in local hi-speed internet markets.
Monopoly markets = monopoly pricing
ISP's charge what the market will bear. You would do the same thing in their position. It's basic economics -- except that politicians forcibly change the voluntary market system to favor some ISP's -- and harm consumers.
Open up the internet markets to real competition.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
When Comcast implemented their 250G/m cap (and back when I had Comcast), they never enforced it here (and I tried to get them to cancel my service). There are just too many alternatives.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Is this something that should be a public service, like roads? Or what exactly is your proposed set of regulations to do away with?
I have to admit to a great lack of information in this area.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I believe so, yes. This is exactly the sort of thing that should be a public work, and the infrastructure made available for use by all. The result would be real competition in the ISP world.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think you would be very surprised at what data the government has access too.
Of course there is a very easy solution encrypt all connections end to end, that makes it much harder (not impossible) for people to listen in.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's just what we know about. It's not unreasonable to assume the real figure is higher -- probably approaching 100% of all traffic flowing through the backbone in the US.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This eliminates the number one problem for new providers, the cost of the infrastructure to provide the service. However, it introduces several other problems.
Personally, I think the government should not be involved in covering the cost only in mandating that the company that builds a system must lease (share) it to competitors for reasonable rates. That way you get true competition without taxes going sky high to pay for the build out.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
With a public infrastructure, people compete for the business of providing the service. It's the same general principle as having public roads, and different trucking companies competing for the shipping business.
Of course, there are downsides as well. That's why I am asking for different input. I'm especially leery of technological government ownership because I am not sure why anyone would work on improving it then, and there is definitely a hardware aspect to better service here. Or well, in my opinion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
In case the sarcasm is lost on you, go into your poorest neighborhood in your closest city.
Go look at the roads and their condition.. Now.. go to the richest neighborhood and look at the condition of -THEIR- roads.
Then reflect on that, and then contemplate the fact that when the government is providing your internet service, then that means they control the flow of your information..
Consider those two things.. and get back to me, Mkay?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: Orin on Jan 23rd, 2013 @ 8:30am
Not everyone is selfish to the point of sociopathy, despite what adherents to classical economics would have you believe.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This will cost us
When other countries have 10x the bandwidth we have for 1/10th the price, they will technologically innovate while we will stand still.
It is time for the FCC to drop the hammer on ISPs and make caps, throttling, filtering, and monitoring illegal. Its way past time that the internet be declared a common carrier network. But of course the FCC has be regulatory captured and refuses to serve the public like its supposed to.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Caps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Caps
The problem is not the total amount of data a connection consumes, but having many connections trying to consume data at the same time. To illustrate, 10 hours of video download spread over 10 hours demands much less bandwidth than 10 1 hour videos downloaded at the same time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Caps
Caps can be successfully implemented. However I don't think it is right to use them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Caps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Caps
Besides that the premise of the article here is that there is no technical reason to have the caps in the first place.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Caps
So hooray, my whole neighborhood is still online from 5-10 pm but now almost no one is online from 12-4am but I can't use that empty highway because datacaps.
If they had tiered pricing based on peak/off hours that would help distribute load and keep the local network from getting jammed up, but people would also hate it because those hours are peak for a reason.
Datacaps do nothing but make them extra money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Caps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
What I mean is, if the infrastructure is a public service, what incentive is there to improve it, do research toward better infrastructure, etc? Or is there a regulatory regime that can help mitigate this?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
GNS3 - Graphical Network Simulator 3
Great to show what is real and what is not, also great for learning the basics of network in the modern world.
You can see how full of crap cable companies really are.
You don't need to trust me, simulate their networks and see if I am lying about it :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Other tools for network simulation can be found on SourceForge.
Spin-doctors are about to get slaughtered in public, this is a great day.
People have the tools to show how full of shite these people really are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
More truthfully stated
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I would also note that Comcast suspended enforcement on its data caps last summer and has yet to re-instate them. That would seem to refute your assertion that "Bandwidth caps are about protecting the cable industry from online video. Its that simple"
Yes, it is all about control, just not necessarily for the reason you stated.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bandwidth
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You can't stockpile bandwidth
Blocking access is obstructionist and damages the US economy the same as the last person in the path of a freeway refusing to sell their land.
All companies found guilty of withholding bandwidth should be turned into co-ops via eminent domain.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You can't stockpile bandwidth
Secondly, ISP's infrastructure is theirs to do with what they want. No one is entitled to it. The ISP paid for it. That's like saying if you are not using every room in your house you should be forced to let someone off the street live there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: You can't stockpile bandwidth
I do deeply sympathize though with the situation you describe. My only caveat is that you were the victim of a long tradition of attempting to assign ownership to something that simply cannot be fairly owned.
Your own work, the fruits of your labor, and things you traded for are examples of things that are easily "personal property". But when you go to make something big enough that it obstructs other people's use of land, that begins to be something we all need to consult together about.
Imminent domain is necessary in some cases to provide basic services. I do like it better though when they use easements rather than taking entire chunks of land though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
if this was about fairness they would offer plans that starts with ZERO dollars a month and go up per GB used.
for instance, if i use 1 GB per months - id only pay $5 a month or less
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Comcast has never really actively enforced their caps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
caps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: caps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
to the guy that asked about the isp's needing to offer better upload speeds
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: to the guy that asked about the isp's needing to offer better upload speeds
My problem is how a company (specifically Windstream in area code 27332) can oversell to the point that the loss during peak is over 90%. I pay for 12 megs and I barely get one. After complaints to corporate I received a 10.00 discount (hush money) for twelve months. I accepted because the discount was the equivalent cost of the slowest speed they offer in my area. Now that year has passed and there has been no change in service. The FCC, the chamber of Commerce and some other consumer advocate should have a minimum acceptable standard for peak loss. I can accept 10, 2o, even 40% during peak. But 92% ?!? that is just wrong. and they continue to advertise those speeds in this area. This SHOULD be illegal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: to the guy that asked about the isp's needing to offer better upload speeds
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A few things
2) data Capps/throttling can be solved by paying more fir business class (not all ISPs do this though)
3) most ISPs give business class bandwidth priority over residential. So u never slow during peak times unless the issue is out side their network
4) downside a 99$ 55x5 TWC cab,ex modem is 99$/month plus phone service. For business it's about 309$/month but with the above perks
The have the backbone bandwidth. What the LACK is LOCAL bandwidth to the DSLAMS/VRAD (ATT or other DSL companies ), nodes/Amps/hubs for cable modems ... Lastly lacking enough frame relay cloud bandwidth for fiber to home. THIS is where that don't want to pay
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
caps high speed
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
bandwidth
[ link to this | view in chronology ]