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FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

theregister.co.uk

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Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#31

Post by paulie_a »

Alupis wrote: post #9
superkuh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-mobile has been throttling and creating paid fast lanes pretty heavily and I now pay as much in data overage fees to comcast per month as half my total bill.

How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If you're hosting something, might be worth upgrading to a business connection, which doesn't have data caps and comes with static ip's and a SLA. As an aside - I'm personally OK with data caps so long as they don't impact most users (80/20, 90/10 or something li…

Was it sold as unlimited? Then it should be unlimited. Data caps should be illegal in that context. Same with throttling

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#32

Post by epanchin »

jasonlfunk wrote: post #5

It’s been over two years since Net Neutrality was repealed. I remember at the time there was a lot of talk about how the internet was going to be ruined by throttling, paid “fast lanes”, etc. Have any of these things happened? Or did that turn out to mostly be fear-mongering?

Fast lanes benefit established players at the expense of start ups. Consequently, if there has been detrimental effects, I doubt you would notice them.

When you think to yourself, why do I put up with youtube, why isn't there an alternative... that's the 'thing happening'.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#33

Post by wyattpeak »

kick wrote: post #19
Alupis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1mbps Ya, but you didn't do that. 1TB pushed at a constant 1Mbps, would take 88 days... 4TB taking nearly an entire year. 4TB at a constant 100Mbps takes 3.5 days. It is a HUGE amount of data. > recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home Netflix claims about 3GB per hour of HD content streamed[1]. So if you were to s…

(1 tb) / (1 (mb / s)) = 11.5740741 days Ah, I see. mbps v. MBps. Capitalization error! Also, you're arguing against the past point which is fine because I messed up the capitalization (though the point still holds, because I wasn't doing anything abnormal; it was a two person household with a game console), but not against present use-cases: 4k 24fps video for Netflix is 7GB, and 1080p 24fps video is over 3GB/hr (HD…

Even at 7GB an hour, they'd have to both be watching separately for over seven hours a day, every day. At 3GB an hour, 16 hours a day.

It's not impossible, but it certainly isn't blowing through the cap quickly.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#34

Post by Alupis »

kick wrote: post #19
Alupis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1mbps Ya, but you didn't do that. 1TB pushed at a constant 1Mbps, would take 88 days... 4TB taking nearly an entire year. 4TB at a constant 100Mbps takes 3.5 days. It is a HUGE amount of data. > recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home Netflix claims about 3GB per hour of HD content streamed[1]. So if you were to s…

(1 tb) / (1 (mb / s)) = 11.5740741 days Ah, I see. mbps v. MBps. Capitalization error! Also, you're arguing against the past point which is fine because I messed up the capitalization (though the point still holds, because I wasn't doing anything abnormal; it was a two person household with a game console), but not against present use-cases: 4k 24fps video for Netflix is 7GB, and 1080p 24fps video is over 3GB/hr (HD…

> Caps are only a thing because Comcast oversells every connection

The caps are a thing because Comcast pays for ingress traffic into their network (they pay other providers from which the data comes from). At a point, you cost them more than you pay for. Which is where they charge you an overage.

Seems more than fair to me - I pay currently $49.99 a month for 150Mbps connection with a 3TB cap (I'm aware they offer different rates, speeds, and caps in different areas).

I do not want to pay more than $49.99 just because someone else in my area constantly uses 10TB each month - that person should pay more, not me.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#35

Post by Alupis »

gonehome wrote: post #28
Alupis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If you're hosting something, might be worth upgrading to a business connection, which doesn't have data caps and comes with static ip's and a SLA. As an aside - I'm personally OK with data caps so long as they don't impact most users (80/20, 90/10 or something li…

My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph. I was using steadily 600-700GB of data a month on my gigabit plan. It suddenly spiked to 2TB - from what I could tell there was no change in behavior, my ubiquiti gear wasn't showing this amount of usage. This went on and used up my two 'courtesy' months of overages forcing me to pay the extra money to re…

> My main complaint is that Comcast gives no insight into how they calculate your usage beyond a generic bar graph

Fair enough - but also in fairness, your electric utility provides about as much (which is also frustrating when you're trying to figure out why your bill went up 25% one month).

I personally run a mikrotik router which tracks my usage too, so I have a reference to double check against and could wage a good argument with evidence that I didn't use the data they claim.

Not everyone can do that though... but perhaps standard routers should come with these features now-days.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#36

Post by afiori »

anonsivalley652 wrote: post #23
silverreads wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.org is getting sold, all data plans have transfer caps, google is not even showing urls to mobile users anymore, yes things are going to hell.

Mostly correct, essentially all new plans have transfer caps. I still have a vintage Verizon data plan that's bonafide unlimited. Data overage is gotcha-capitalism robbery.

What I never properly understood is whether these caps appear anywhere on your contracts, if they don't then net neutrality should[1] not be necessary and if they do then it should not apply.

[0] I guess I am wrong in believing this should is respected

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#37

Post by crooked-v »

Alupis wrote: post #9
superkuh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-mobile has been throttling and creating paid fast lanes pretty heavily and I now pay as much in data overage fees to comcast per month as half my total bill.

How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If you're hosting something, might be worth upgrading to a business connection, which doesn't have data caps and comes with static ip's and a SLA. As an aside - I'm personally OK with data caps so long as they don't impact most users (80/20, 90/10 or something li…

One simple scenario to break 1 TB:

- Netflix in 4K (7 GB/hour), 2 hours per weekday on 2 screens. That's 560 GB in a 4-week month.

- Google Stadia in 4K (35 GB/hour), 2 hours per week on 2 screens. That's 560 GB in a 4-week month.

Bam, 1,120 GB/month.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#38

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Alupis wrote: post #9
superkuh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-mobile has been throttling and creating paid fast lanes pretty heavily and I now pay as much in data overage fees to comcast per month as half my total bill.

How much data are you using monthly? My comcast "cap" is 3TB monthly... which is a HUGE amount of data for a residential user. I've never even broken 1TB... If you're hosting something, might be worth upgrading to a business connection, which doesn't have data caps and comes with static ip's and a SLA. As an aside - I'm personally OK with data caps so long as they don't impact most users (80/20, 90/10 or something li…

> ISP's pay for ingress traffic

What makes you think that? Most everyone will peer with residential ISPs for free. There have even been issues with residential ISPs trying to get paid for ingress traffic, because they control the only network path to their customers which means they can charge monopoly prices to video competitors like Netflix who want to send traffic to their users on that ISP.

> so by setting a data cap that impacts only the egregious data hogs, it means they can charge normal users a smaller rate, rather than subsidize a few users by charging everyone more.

An ISP's costs are dominated by things like staff and trucks and electricity that depend little if at all on how much data someone transfers. None of the other customers are going to get a discount from heavy users using less because there is no meaningful savings there.

The reason for data caps is some combination of anticompetitive practices and price discrimination.

If you tell people they have a data cap, they'll try to minimize usage. Which is to say minimize Netflix, which counts toward the data cap -- but hey look, the ISP's own video service doesn't.

They also assume that if you use a lot of data, you derive a lot of value from internet service, so even if the data hardly costs them anything, the fact that it's valuable to you makes them want you to have to pay more for a business connection.

Both of these are stupid reasons which they only get away with because of the lack of competition.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#39

Post by jayess »

Alupis wrote: post #10
silverreads wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.org is getting sold, all data plans have transfer caps, google is not even showing urls to mobile users anymore, yes things are going to hell.

I'm all for net neutrality, but 2 of the 3 things you listed were never going to be "protected" by net neutrality laws. Which highlights the problem with what Net Neutrality morphed into - it became something that meant everything and anything - not just "dumb pipes" like it originated as. Ask 3 different people what Net Neutrality means and you'll get 3 different answers. How do you legislate that and make everyone…

I don’t think any of those things have anything to do with net neutrality.

Re: FCC forced by court to ask the public again for feedback on net neutrality

#40

Post by afiori »

kick wrote: post #19
Alupis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember using 1-4TB a month in my youth on a connection that couldn't push 1mbps Ya, but you didn't do that. 1TB pushed at a constant 1Mbps, would take 88 days... 4TB taking nearly an entire year. 4TB at a constant 100Mbps takes 3.5 days. It is a HUGE amount of data. > recent emergence of high-definition video streamed to every home Netflix claims about 3GB per hour of HD content streamed[1]. So if you were to s…

(1 tb) / (1 (mb / s)) = 11.5740741 days Ah, I see. mbps v. MBps. Capitalization error! Also, you're arguing against the past point which is fine because I messed up the capitalization (though the point still holds, because I wasn't doing anything abnormal; it was a two person household with a game console), but not against present use-cases: 4k 24fps video for Netflix is 7GB, and 1080p 24fps video is over 3GB/hr (HD…

I believe you are missing the point of net neutrality: Comcast can sell a 200 KB data connection, but needs to provide the advertised service transparently.

what is should be forbidden would be to advertise an unlimited plan and then post-facto soft ban users that actually test the unlimited description, or deprioritize connection to expensive services (like YouTube, Netflix or torrents)

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