11–20 of 68 posts
I love the paper-thin justification here the most. "We have to do this because people don't want to pay for bandwidth they don't use!" OK, where's my $10 a month refund for every 50 GB I go under the limit?
In theory...
I anticipate many technically disinclined people receiving very large bills as a result of running an open wireless network.
I think instead of being able to advertise "up to" speeds, ISPs should have to advertise the overall average speed you can use in a month taking into account usage caps. 150GB/month works out to .47MBit/sec sustained throughput. If AT&T had to advertise that rate instead of 6Mbit for DSL lines, they'd think twice about caps. UVerse is even worse--~1Mbit/sec instead of 24.
That said, burst speed is what matters if you are streaming or doing something else that is similar. The typical user has no need for sustained output unless they are torrenting things, being used as a supernode for skype, ect. I do like the idea though.
I don't think it's unreasonable to look at something that is true 3% of the time and call it an unfair claim.
I feel like this is less about ability to handle the 2% who go over the bandwidth limit and more a means to fight piracy. I would assume the 2% who go over 150/250gb/month are people sharing large amounts of media (sure people like me download tons of legal soundboard recordings from bands, etc, but probably not the majority of that 2%). By capping the bandwidth, they can effectively cripple the ability for some to s…
This is about revenue protection for their U-Verse TV business. They want to control the share of wallet and they'll use the tools they have available to do that. They don't want to become "just a pipe" where you go Internet only and then pay your TV content dollars to Hulu, etc...
The idea that 2% of users using 20% of the bandwidth is hurting "normal" people is a PR move that is going to do great harm to future innovation. The way I see it those 2% of users are early adopters and a couple of years from now "normal people" will be using as much bandwidth as the current 2% does. Limiting bandwidth now hurts future innovation.
The idea that 2% of users using 20% of the bandwidth is hurting "normal" people is a PR move that is going to do great harm to future innovation. The way I see it those 2% of users are early adopters and a couple of years from now "normal people" will be using as much bandwidth as the current 2% does. Limiting bandwidth now hurts future innovation.
Isn't it a bit disingenuous to suppose that we don't know exactly what those 2% are doing?
I recently moved to Seattle and had no choice but to sign up with Comcast. I wanted to have streaming video of NHK Japan coverage open while I'm doing things around the house. I'm to worried about eating into my monthly limit to do so.
I feel like this is less about ability to handle the 2% who go over the bandwidth limit and more a means to fight piracy. I would assume the 2% who go over 150/250gb/month are people sharing large amounts of media (sure people like me download tons of legal soundboard recordings from bands, etc, but probably not the majority of that 2%). By capping the bandwidth, they can effectively cripple the ability for some to s…
I think it's more about making things more difficult for services like Netflix and Hulu as well as extracting some extra revenue from their top users who don't have any other choice for internet service.