Coronavirus could force ISPs to abandon data caps forever(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Coronavirus could force ISPs to abandon data caps forever
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-could-force-isps-to-abandon-data-caps-forever/
115 comments
You are assuming the ISP will act in a near altruistic mode, allocate all of the available capacity in a sort of 'fair' manner. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, history has shown this not to be the case.
In some countries ISP's have moved from data caps to 'unlimited' offers over a decade ago. 'Unlimited' always comes with an asterix, where you will find the 'good house-father' clause, meaning that they can decide to throttle your connection based on some vaguely or unspecified condition completely under their discretion.
In practice network usage is unsurprisingly following a Pareto distribution. Every ISP wants to get the top 10% of bandwidth users off their network and dump them onto their competitors. So they use the 'good house-father' clause to try to do just that.
At least with data caps you had a clear and verifiable criterium. The 'unlimited' plans just give the ISP carte-blanche in actively selecting and culling their users.
In some countries ISP's have moved from data caps to 'unlimited' offers over a decade ago. 'Unlimited' always comes with an asterix, where you will find the 'good house-father' clause, meaning that they can decide to throttle your connection based on some vaguely or unspecified condition completely under their discretion.
In practice network usage is unsurprisingly following a Pareto distribution. Every ISP wants to get the top 10% of bandwidth users off their network and dump them onto their competitors. So they use the 'good house-father' clause to try to do just that.
At least with data caps you had a clear and verifiable criterium. The 'unlimited' plans just give the ISP carte-blanche in actively selecting and culling their users.
What's wrong with charging more for people who use more?
When I pay for bandwidth to my house, I should get that bandwidth, and be able to use it for whatever I want. I don't care if they oversold their network. It's not my problem. I should not get punished for using the bandwidth I paid for. If people who barely use the internet are paying the same as me, that's not my problem either.
If ISPs are suffering congestion, that's because they did a bad job designing their network for the amount of demand they have. Throttling is just a way for them to cheap out on their network, but sell "gigabit" internet to everybody. If they can't serve me 1 gigabit, they are selling shitty service.
If they want to charge for X amount of bits per month, that should be the up front pricing scheme. I should not be paying for a "1 gigabit" plan, but have the amount of bits that I can use be buried in the fine print. Especially when bits per month is the REAL indicator of what they are selling.
If ISPs are suffering congestion, that's because they did a bad job designing their network for the amount of demand they have. Throttling is just a way for them to cheap out on their network, but sell "gigabit" internet to everybody. If they can't serve me 1 gigabit, they are selling shitty service.
If they want to charge for X amount of bits per month, that should be the up front pricing scheme. I should not be paying for a "1 gigabit" plan, but have the amount of bits that I can use be buried in the fine print. Especially when bits per month is the REAL indicator of what they are selling.
That is not the point. Consumption based charging would be fine and which is exactly what we had before. These 'unlimited' plans are not that. These are a free pass to ditch your more 'undesirable' customers onto your competition. Yes, that can be because they use more, but also because they use less of your 'value-added' high margin services, because they use 'non-mainstream' data (less edge-cached), less data for which you receive kickbacks, consume not more but at peak times, or simply because you do not like them for whatever.
T-mobile deprioritizes down to 2G speeds which makes web browsing nearly unusable.
That isn't true anymore. In the old days of limited data plans, they would throttle customers to 2G speeds after their allotment was used. Today, they deprioritize which simply slows speeds when there is network congestion in the area.
I have a T-Mobile plan with 5GB of "unlimited data" and it goes down to 256kbps when the data is used up. As I learned the hard way, there is no way to buy more data or restart the billing cycle earlier no matter how much you are willing to pay.
Data Pass doesn't work?
www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/data-passes
www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/data-passes
Not for prepaid plans which are treated as steerage class by T-mobile. MVNOs are in the same doghouse.
Deprioritization can be pretty technically hard to achieve, especially when you don't want every edge node to have to do connection tracking... Even if you solve that, you still have to set up queuing rules at every node in your very diverse network, and deal with the fact most routes will be seeing packet loss most of the time on some queues at least. Managing that is possible, but harder.
Some network architectures involve fragmenting and reassembling packets, and there it can become nearly impossible to implement 'priority' correctly.
"We limit you to 10Mbps at just one bottleneck location if you use more than 50 gigs" is far far easier to implement, not to mention easier for the business managers, and customers, to understand.
Some network architectures involve fragmenting and reassembling packets, and there it can become nearly impossible to implement 'priority' correctly.
"We limit you to 10Mbps at just one bottleneck location if you use more than 50 gigs" is far far easier to implement, not to mention easier for the business managers, and customers, to understand.
A lot of UK broadband is advertised as "unlimited" but subject to a fair usage policy. I guess they must use a similar system to the one you described. It's pretty decent, and I'm never really thinking about my usage, which is what I like (I don't want to feel like I'm going to run out of bandwidth).
Interestingly, my ISP gave me a breakdown of my data usage, and I was under a meager 30gb/mo ever since my contact started. That surprised me as I watch a fair bit of YouTube etc, however, I guess it just doesn't add up to all that much.
Interestingly, my ISP gave me a breakdown of my data usage, and I was under a meager 30gb/mo ever since my contact started. That surprised me as I watch a fair bit of YouTube etc, however, I guess it just doesn't add up to all that much.
> Interestingly, my ISP gave me a breakdown of my data usage, and I was under a meager 30gb/mo ever since my contact started. That surprised me as I watch a fair bit of YouTube etc, however, I guess it just doesn't add up to all that much.
My hypothesis (could be wrong, very anecdotal, no evidence):
1. YouTube does some pretty heavy compression to begin with (as several popular YouTubers have complained over the years) 2. YouTube in its default settings switches to the lower resolution when it detects you are not actively watching the video
I think this one two punch means that you sip on data even when you think you use YouTube a lot.
My hypothesis (could be wrong, very anecdotal, no evidence):
1. YouTube does some pretty heavy compression to begin with (as several popular YouTubers have complained over the years) 2. YouTube in its default settings switches to the lower resolution when it detects you are not actively watching the video
I think this one two punch means that you sip on data even when you think you use YouTube a lot.
> when it detects you are not actively watching the video
How? By its very nature, watching video is passive. Unless they watch you through the camera.
It actually infuriates me when YouTube auto-lowers the resolution (usually because I have slow Internet). I almost always set it to 720p or 1080p, but I have to do it every time because it doesn't remember my setting.
How? By its very nature, watching video is passive. Unless they watch you through the camera.
It actually infuriates me when YouTube auto-lowers the resolution (usually because I have slow Internet). I almost always set it to 720p or 1080p, but I have to do it every time because it doesn't remember my setting.
Assuming Good intention and Faith from ISP, I really do like and enjoy Fair Use Policy. There are some bad actors on the network that uses Terabytes of Data per month. They should just be throttled.
I hope the trend worldwide would be Speed based Price Plan with Fair Use policy and throttling. I hate the idea of Data Caps, especially when Apple is sending hundreds of MB of Data every month for whatever reason. ( Calander, Syncing etc.. )
I hope the trend worldwide would be Speed based Price Plan with Fair Use policy and throttling. I hate the idea of Data Caps, especially when Apple is sending hundreds of MB of Data every month for whatever reason. ( Calander, Syncing etc.. )
Packet counts are a poor estimate of cost or usage. They might as well charge customers by the minute with variable rates based on how many hops are required or which companies' "web partners" you visited for all the sense it makes.
Do you know how many 'broadband' customers you can get out of a 1000/1000 strand of fiber? Way more than you'd guess. And at our monopoly rates, you could pay off everything you needed to serve it to them in less time than Comcast's and AT&T's CEOs will spend caring about actually providing service that meets the definition of broadband.
Do you know how many 'broadband' customers you can get out of a 1000/1000 strand of fiber? Way more than you'd guess. And at our monopoly rates, you could pay off everything you needed to serve it to them in less time than Comcast's and AT&T's CEOs will spend caring about actually providing service that meets the definition of broadband.
>Do you know how many 'broadband' customers you can get out of a 1000/1000 strand of fiber?
Yes I do know a bit about GPON, but my comment was referring to wireless. Where Data Cap is common, I see no reason why wired internet on fibre should have Data Cap, when terabytes is referred to was not that much at all.
Yes I do know a bit about GPON, but my comment was referring to wireless. Where Data Cap is common, I see no reason why wired internet on fibre should have Data Cap, when terabytes is referred to was not that much at all.
Your scheme sounds suspiciously similar to... a data cap.
No it wont. Sure they might waive fees for a 60 days or so but to think that these corporations would give up their free money piggy bank is untethered from reality. If anything they will use it to try and get people to upgrade to a higher tier.
A shiny nickel says that right now, there is an ISP sales VP asking if the terms of service for customer lines exclude using a VPN to get in to work, and if this can be detected and used as a forced upsell.
I'm actually hoping that ISPs start to squeeze in this direction just because it's something that might actually garner enough anger/support to force legislators to say what exactly buying "internet service" means. Businesses aren't gonna be happy when people start expensing their internet service.
So please force customers to upgrade to a $2-3x "business class" package if they want to use their internet to do any work/commercial activity.
So please force customers to upgrade to a $2-3x "business class" package if they want to use their internet to do any work/commercial activity.
Until the ISPs decide that all freelancers and any VPN are "business use" and then the legislators don't do anything about it.
I agree 100%. I worked at a telco and managed the usage metering system. We regularly had meeting with sales and marketing, and time and again there was no way on earth they were going to give up usage caps, it's just too much money to leave on the table.
They will hold onto usage caps tooth and nail until they're mandated by law to drop them, and even then they'll try to blackmail the legislators (my company did it often) with lines like "Oh OK, now we can't roll out fibre to x, y, z city". So the legislators back off, and usage caps stay!
They will hold onto usage caps tooth and nail until they're mandated by law to drop them, and even then they'll try to blackmail the legislators (my company did it often) with lines like "Oh OK, now we can't roll out fibre to x, y, z city". So the legislators back off, and usage caps stay!
"corporations would give up their free money piggy bank is untethered from reality"
Bandwidth is absolutely not free, to suggest that carriers Ops and Capex somehow represents a 'free money piggy bank' is actually untethered from reality. There are possibly some alterations that could be made, but it's basically false to suggest that their product is detached from underlying cost.
Bandwidth is absolutely not free, to suggest that carriers Ops and Capex somehow represents a 'free money piggy bank' is actually untethered from reality. There are possibly some alterations that could be made, but it's basically false to suggest that their product is detached from underlying cost.
If your usage is outside of the 95th percentile, ya, it’s free.
Not using it is just a waste because you’ll never get it back. You can’t bank spectrum.
Not using it is just a waste because you’ll never get it back. You can’t bank spectrum.
Who said anything about costs at the margin, i.e. 95th percentile?
You've just 'moved the goalposts' across the field :)
Bandwidth is a commodity like anything else and has underlying structural costs - it's far from free in any sense of the word. Even at the 95th percentile, as you say, there's no guarantee that there's unused bandwidth at all.
You've just 'moved the goalposts' across the field :)
Bandwidth is a commodity like anything else and has underlying structural costs - it's far from free in any sense of the word. Even at the 95th percentile, as you say, there's no guarantee that there's unused bandwidth at all.
We’re talking about caps. As in, gb/month that residential users are often subjected to.
“Dats caps” have many variations.
Americans are used to the version where tricks and ISPs advertise “unlimited” but have arbitrarily defined and enforced caps with no transparency where tut may get throttled, random packets dropped, that sort of thing.
Australia OTOH (IMHO) handled this much better.
The ACCC (like the FTC/FCC but with teeth and without regulatory capture) said it was false advertising under the Trade Practices Act to say something was “unlimited” if it has soft or hard data caps.
What this did in the nascent days of Australia’s broadband was force ISPs to offer an explicit quota that was advertised. It allowed Javier users to pay more and lighter users to pay less.
Some hardliners here will rejects even that but non-American ISPs have one big coat and limitation that American ISPs don’t: they have to pay to connect to America. And transpacific bandwidth certainly wasn’t free.
Nowadays unlimited is more the norm and it’s actual unlimited too. This is just market maturity as external bandwidth is a lot more plentiful than 10-20 years ago.
Of course, the connection speeds still suck but that’s a whole other thing.
My point is that companies need to be stopped when they make false claims about “unlimited” or anything else.
Americans are used to the version where tricks and ISPs advertise “unlimited” but have arbitrarily defined and enforced caps with no transparency where tut may get throttled, random packets dropped, that sort of thing.
Australia OTOH (IMHO) handled this much better.
The ACCC (like the FTC/FCC but with teeth and without regulatory capture) said it was false advertising under the Trade Practices Act to say something was “unlimited” if it has soft or hard data caps.
What this did in the nascent days of Australia’s broadband was force ISPs to offer an explicit quota that was advertised. It allowed Javier users to pay more and lighter users to pay less.
Some hardliners here will rejects even that but non-American ISPs have one big coat and limitation that American ISPs don’t: they have to pay to connect to America. And transpacific bandwidth certainly wasn’t free.
Nowadays unlimited is more the norm and it’s actual unlimited too. This is just market maturity as external bandwidth is a lot more plentiful than 10-20 years ago.
Of course, the connection speeds still suck but that’s a whole other thing.
My point is that companies need to be stopped when they make false claims about “unlimited” or anything else.
This will probably only change through regulation. The only way you'll get regulation is by making politicians view this as very good PR for themselves.
(This is what happened in Israel, though it's rare to see such effectiveness here)
(This is what happened in Israel, though it's rare to see such effectiveness here)
What are the data caps? How many GB of up and down traffic?
Here in Norway only mobile data is capped. ADSL and fibre are effectively unlimited. As far as I know this is generally the case in Europe.
Here in Norway only mobile data is capped. ADSL and fibre are effectively unlimited. As far as I know this is generally the case in Europe.
Here in the US, my Comcast internet connection comes with a 1TB (up and down combined, i think) per month cap. If you go over they give you a warning the first few times, then charge some outrageous amount per gigabyte that you go over. If you ask them how much for an uncapped connection, they will lie to you and claim that option does not exist. Only after blowing the cap a few times will they admit that they will remove the cap for an _additional_ $50/mo.
This is the only ISP that services my house in a residential area of Seattle.
This is the only ISP that services my house in a residential area of Seattle.
1. Look into their xFi Advantage plan. It's a something like $15/month add-on to the internet plans that adds various monitoring (and security?) features that you probably do not care about, and adds unlimited data.
The catch? Only available if you rent an xFi router/modem from them, which is something like $10-12/month. (It might also only be available if you have 300 Mbps or faster service).
Still, $15+$12 < $50, so it is a cheaper way to get unlimited than going for the $50/month unlimited add on with your own modem.
I believe you can put the xFi Advantage router/modem into bridge mode if you want to use your own router.
2. When doing anything with your Comcast service, go to an Xfinity store or a Comcast service center in person to deal with it rather than talking to customer service on the phone.
I've done this several times, and always got someone who could effectively deal with whatever my issue was.
The catch? Only available if you rent an xFi router/modem from them, which is something like $10-12/month. (It might also only be available if you have 300 Mbps or faster service).
Still, $15+$12 < $50, so it is a cheaper way to get unlimited than going for the $50/month unlimited add on with your own modem.
I believe you can put the xFi Advantage router/modem into bridge mode if you want to use your own router.
2. When doing anything with your Comcast service, go to an Xfinity store or a Comcast service center in person to deal with it rather than talking to customer service on the phone.
I've done this several times, and always got someone who could effectively deal with whatever my issue was.
Even working from home I think would have trouble blowing through 1TB in a month. How many hours of video conferencing would that cover? Initial Google search says about 4hrs/GB, so 4000hrs/TB, or over 5 months of nonstop video conferencing?
I have a five person household that includes three teenagers. They stream a lot, and my oldest plays X Box games where installing a game can eat 100GB. We run perilously close to the 1TB cap each month.
From a WFH perspective, downloading, updating, and uploading big Docker containers and other big packages can be bandwidth heavy. My work laptop also has online backup software that continually pushes new files back to the cloud, and that's bandwidth heavy as well.
Video conferencing is not the only thing people do with their residential internet.
It's the most data intensive thing I can imagine that fits with working from home due to Covid-19.
Obviously if you're hosting a website from your home server you can go above that, but why would you do that instead of using a real host and ssh-ing in, which wouldn't even register against 1TB?
Obviously if you're hosting a website from your home server you can go above that, but why would you do that instead of using a real host and ssh-ing in, which wouldn't even register against 1TB?
I routinely deal with large docker images, deployments, sometimes VM stuff, video files, model files. 20-30TB a month is considered a good month.
Remote desktop is also a consistent ~50-70Mbps per screen to have readable text while actively working on something (not using RDP/VNC).
Remote desktop is also a consistent ~50-70Mbps per screen to have readable text while actively working on something (not using RDP/VNC).
You’re assuming that nobody has a job that requires transferring large files on a regular basis.
OT: what determines network speed for an AWS EC2 instance? I work from home, and occasionally need to scp a large file from one of our instances at AWS.
I've never managed to get that to go faster than 15-20 Mbps.
I've never managed to get that to go faster than 15-20 Mbps.
Why do those files have to be transferred to your home? Can't you use ssh/remote desktop to connect to your office desktop and work with them there?
I haven't had an office desktop in around a decade. I have a laptop which I'm currently using at home.
You’re assuming again that everyone has a laptop for home and a desktop at work (rare in my experience).
AutoCAD over local NFS chokes, I can't imagine trying to run it over VDI.
Some things are just IO and processor intensive, and for those, having the data be local is a much more efficient process overall.
Some things are just IO and processor intensive, and for those, having the data be local is a much more efficient process overall.
> AutoCAD over local NFS chokes, I can't imagine trying to run it over VDI.
VDI lets the “desktop” actually running the software potentially be more local to the storage than local NFS, even though both are more distant from the end-user, so I don't see the problem.
VDI lets the “desktop” actually running the software potentially be more local to the storage than local NFS, even though both are more distant from the end-user, so I don't see the problem.
Comcast advertises very clearly that unlimited is an additional $50/m: https://dataplan.xfinity.com/unlimited/
When I signed up for internet, I asked the representative for unlimited data because I was aware of this option. The representative flat out denied that it existed and refused to even tell me the price for such a thing.
It's a relatively new option. It may have actually not existed back when you signed up, or the rep just didn't know about it. Either way, I don't see why they'd want to hide it, because a consistent $50/month fee is much better than a large overage charge here and there that may or may not actually be paid.
>that may or may not actually be paid.
Please tell me, how do I avoid paying overage fees? I have zero moral qualms about defrauding Comcast to the maximum possible extent.
Please tell me, how do I avoid paying overage fees? I have zero moral qualms about defrauding Comcast to the maximum possible extent.
> that may or may not actually be paid
It'll be paid. Most of their customers don't have any other choice but to pay it. (Otherwise, most of them already wouldn't be their customers, after all.)
It'll be paid. Most of their customers don't have any other choice but to pay it. (Otherwise, most of them already wouldn't be their customers, after all.)
Same here in Algiers, Algeria. Mobile is prepaid. You buy 60GB for 10€. It expires after a month. The bandwidth sucks, though. Sometimes you have 20Mbps, sometimes it's faster to take a plane and get your data in a hard drive, which is something I have considered when I had to download a dataset of 60GB and it was taking forever. The data holder was in France. We didn't have ADSL in the office yet.
Mobile in the US is closer to $15-25/GB for hotspot data. Damn.
Depends where you are. A number of Irish ISPs have soft caps, though they're usually of the "we reserve the right to throttle if you go over this" type, not "we will charge you a euro per GB if you go over this".
I've often thought there should be like an optional slowlane and fastlane for downloads. Last night I downloaded a 20GB game and it nearly pinned my internet connection and downloaded in about 20 mins. But I knew i wasnt going to play if for several hours and there would be no reason to "brownout" my neighbors. I want fast internet when i want it. But also see a time and place for "download this, eventually"
This should be possible client-side... You just negotiate the TCP ACKs to have a slower response rate, essentially self-throttling the quality of the connection.
OneDrive and SyncThing allow you to set a max transfer speed, so it's definitely possible. OneDrive in particular will absolutely kill my network if it's not throttled (I have slow 10/1mbps DSL). It took a while for us to figure that out; for months we were randomly experiencing terrible Internet speeds.
I don't even bother with OneDrive anymore because our Internet is so slow that stuff was always syncing. I use SyncThing between my phone, laptop, and desktop instead, which can sync over the local network.
I don't even bother with OneDrive anymore because our Internet is so slow that stuff was always syncing. I use SyncThing between my phone, laptop, and desktop instead, which can sync over the local network.
They had the chance to price data with some relation to their costs and instead chose to squeeze a few customers while providing everyone inferior service.
Wireless still needs to have a price associated with usage; usage monopolizes a shared resource, EM spectrum, and there should be a cost for that.
For wired or fibre as the CEO of Sonic, Dane Jasper, has always said data is in reality mostly too cheap to bother metering.
Wireless still needs to have a price associated with usage; usage monopolizes a shared resource, EM spectrum, and there should be a cost for that.
For wired or fibre as the CEO of Sonic, Dane Jasper, has always said data is in reality mostly too cheap to bother metering.
Doubtful. I wfh and have hit Comcast's cap a few times in the past. Radioactive? I have no fucking choice even though less than a mile away in all directions there's century link.
The solution is to get a lower speed. I went from 300 to 250 to 200. It's not noticeable. I'd like a gig, but it's just not worth it. This way I pay less too. Fuck Comcast and the monopolies we have here.
The solution is to get a lower speed. I went from 300 to 250 to 200. It's not noticeable. I'd like a gig, but it's just not worth it. This way I pay less too. Fuck Comcast and the monopolies we have here.
We should use open-source mesh wireless networks, and do away with ISPs once and for all.
Wireless mesh networks are all fun and games until you try to scale up.
First you have to deal with the huge coordination issue of getting everybody in line and on line to actually form a mesh.
Then if you actually succeed with that you have to deal with physics, maintenance and upgrades.
Most, if not all networks that start as meshes, devolve into centralized networks.
Then all you have is another ISP.
The root cause to why wireless mesh networks don’t exist in any meaningful way is that traditional ISP networks are more cost effective.
First you have to deal with the huge coordination issue of getting everybody in line and on line to actually form a mesh.
Then if you actually succeed with that you have to deal with physics, maintenance and upgrades.
Most, if not all networks that start as meshes, devolve into centralized networks.
Then all you have is another ISP.
The root cause to why wireless mesh networks don’t exist in any meaningful way is that traditional ISP networks are more cost effective.
What? LOL. No it won't. A few providers will lift them temporarily and then go right back to how things were in a couple of months.
> the very fact that the limits can be lifted at will or certain high-traffic categories (such as a broadband company’s own streaming TV channels) can be exempted [... proves that] there is definitively enough capacity for the network to be used without those caps
Someone doesn't understand how the Internet works.
> the very fact that the limits can be lifted at will or certain high-traffic categories (such as a broadband company’s own streaming TV channels) can be exempted [... proves that] there is definitively enough capacity for the network to be used without those caps
Someone doesn't understand how the Internet works.
Please connect the dots here; what you've written is nonsensical without further explanation. The technical argument in TFA is pretty simple: if this traffic level is feasible now, it will also be feasible in a couple of months. If instead you're making a point about how horrible FCC is, then be more explicit about it.
The cable company's own streaming channels are presumably served from servers on the company's own infrastructure, and the traffic from them to your home does not leave their own infrastructure. So, presumably, that does not count against your internet cap because from the cable company's point of view it is not using the internet. To them, it's part of their intranet.
I don't think that's really what we're talking about? Anyway, it's incorrect, because backhaul is cheap. The whole reason we have to deal with Comcast etc. is the many barriers to competition over the "last mile".
The best way to do data is (connection_fee + usage/MB). That's the most customer-friendly way to do things. It allows customers to alter their usage according to their billing ability. Fixed line usage is probably in the decicents per GB. Wireless is probably in the $8/GB range. All acceptable. I may have the numbers wrong but I think I'm probably in the ballpark.
You are pretty close on the numbers.
Fixed network bandwidth is centicents per GB, and that’s for wholesale IP transit. Peering bandwidth can be cheaper at scale. For all intents and purposes fixed bandwidth is too cheap to meter on consumer connections. As such a single fixed monthly rate for unlimited usage at the chosen line rate is the appropriate solution. Also the most consumer friendly way.
In regulated markets, wholesale costs for a GB of wireless traffic is less than $3. Here you can argue for billing by usage, but there are markets with true unlimited wireless services, and they do just fine.
Fixed network bandwidth is centicents per GB, and that’s for wholesale IP transit. Peering bandwidth can be cheaper at scale. For all intents and purposes fixed bandwidth is too cheap to meter on consumer connections. As such a single fixed monthly rate for unlimited usage at the chosen line rate is the appropriate solution. Also the most consumer friendly way.
In regulated markets, wholesale costs for a GB of wireless traffic is less than $3. Here you can argue for billing by usage, but there are markets with true unlimited wireless services, and they do just fine.
Ah neat. That's cool. I like that. It could also be like fixed below usage and per GB above to mirror the costs. Essentially, small enough that a normal consumer won't see a problem but your torrent 24x7 guy is paying his dues.
I have gigabit fibre here in SF and if I ran at full tilt I'm doing 100 MB/s × 3600 s/hr × 0.01 cents / GB × 0.01 GB / MB = 36 cents / hr. And that's $260 on traffic per month. I think it's fine to pay that in overages if you're using at full tilt.
I totally get the advantage of not worrying about that. I prefer my unlimited which just has a soft limit but I'd prefer to pay for what I use without subsidizing the 0.01 percentile customer.
I'm also a big fan of traffic shaping for wireless because honestly my WhatsApp message is probably more important than my YouTube video. Pause the latter to send the former. Every time. The real tragedy is that we don't have the attention (physically) to be able to auction instantaneous spectrum bandwidth.
I have gigabit fibre here in SF and if I ran at full tilt I'm doing 100 MB/s × 3600 s/hr × 0.01 cents / GB × 0.01 GB / MB = 36 cents / hr. And that's $260 on traffic per month. I think it's fine to pay that in overages if you're using at full tilt.
I totally get the advantage of not worrying about that. I prefer my unlimited which just has a soft limit but I'd prefer to pay for what I use without subsidizing the 0.01 percentile customer.
I'm also a big fan of traffic shaping for wireless because honestly my WhatsApp message is probably more important than my YouTube video. Pause the latter to send the former. Every time. The real tragedy is that we don't have the attention (physically) to be able to auction instantaneous spectrum bandwidth.
You dropped a zero. There are 1000 MB in a GB, so your cost of running a Gbps line at full tilt is more like 3.6 cents per hour.
In other words, bill everybody a dollar per month for bandwidth and worry about it only if average usage per subscriber goes over 10 TB per month.
In other words, bill everybody a dollar per month for bandwidth and worry about it only if average usage per subscriber goes over 10 TB per month.
Listen, I have a graduate degree in Mathematics, so a mistake like that was inevitable, especially because I was trying to be careful about it.
That changes everything! The full-bore user is only $30 over the non-user. I have completely changed my mind. Why even bother measuring this nonsense? This explains why my provider doesn't charge per usage for my symmetric gigabit plan.
That changes everything! The full-bore user is only $30 over the non-user. I have completely changed my mind. Why even bother measuring this nonsense? This explains why my provider doesn't charge per usage for my symmetric gigabit plan.
I am sympathetic to the ISPs. It's good for the planet and emergency situations when we each use wi-fi instead of using cellular data. However, I think the ISPs simply haven't shown enough creativity in incentivizing users to use available wi-fi networks over cell data. I imagine very few people even know that we should want to prioritize wi-fi.
>It's good for the planet and emergency situations when we each use wi-fi instead of using cellular data.
How do you figure?
How do you figure?
Everyone using cell signals takes up that much bandwidth that could otherwise be used for emergency personnel - I'm not saying not to use cell towers, I'm just saying that if you could choose between the two with no penalty on either, wi-fi would be preferable.
Also I would think it's far cheaper energy-wise to transmit the signal from my living room to my study rather than beaming the signal from a cell tower miles away. I could be wrong.
Also I would think it's far cheaper energy-wise to transmit the signal from my living room to my study rather than beaming the signal from a cell tower miles away. I could be wrong.
I called Comcast and had 2 options. Pay $50/month for unlimited or pay $25/mo for unlimited, but I would have to forgo using my own modem/router and use theirs. Decided to just pay the $50, but we'll see what happens. I could see them increasing the cap or forgiving overages for a few months.
You must maybe use their modem (how they can check it I don't know, maybe they don't give you the configuration parameters for the network?) but you always have the possibility to add your own router after it and basically use their modem/router as a simple modem.
It's what I did in my country before they made illegal for ISPs to force you to use their modem/router, simply used the modem/router of the provider as a modem, forwarding all the ports to my own router that I used to do actual routing, WiFi access point and all other stuff that a router does.
It's what I did in my country before they made illegal for ISPs to force you to use their modem/router, simply used the modem/router of the provider as a modem, forwarding all the ports to my own router that I used to do actual routing, WiFi access point and all other stuff that a router does.
They also charge you a monthly fee for using their modem.
They waive that in a lot of cases, as they're trying to build out their network of xfinitywifi hotspots you see everywhere. I still ran my own modem, but it's a point to keep in mind.
If it's providing a WiFi hotspot, then it's their router that you're using, not just their modem.
They give you a combo router and modem by default when you run their modems (for the reason given above). The WAN port is just a downstream port for the internal router.
I don't think there's a way to disable the router itself in most cases these days, just some of the services it provides.
I don't think there's a way to disable the router itself in most cases these days, just some of the services it provides.
The modem has to be authorized via MAC address on the network. They know the MACs of the modems they own, so it's very simple to know if a modem is theirs or not.
That has nothing to do with what he said. At the very least, you can leave their modem also set as a router and just put your router behind it (double NAT). More likely, you can turn off all of the "router" functions of their modem and still put your own router behind it.
There is no way for them to differentiate whether the device behind the modem is a router or a computer.
There is no way for them to differentiate whether the device behind the modem is a router or a computer.
Really? Did he not say:
>You must maybe use their modem (how they can check it I don't know, maybe they don't give you the configuration parameters for the network?)
Because I answered the "how?"
>You must maybe use their modem (how they can check it I don't know, maybe they don't give you the configuration parameters for the network?)
Because I answered the "how?"
I have Comcast and use my own modem and router. The requirement for the modem was simply one which supports at least DOCIS 3.0.
It has to be on the whitelist, and they require that they control the software running on it.
How would they control the software on my modem? I bought it from a third party.
The modems take firmware updates from the cable line side without prompting you.
Do you have some reference for me to learn about this?
For those in the eCommerce area, are you seeing more or less consumer spending right now (outside of supplies ie toilet paper, masks, hand sanitizers..)
Are data caps from ISPs still a thing? Where i live, only mobile operators have data caps, regular ISPs ditched that about ten years ago.
They seem to have plenty of capacity, no issues in Bay Area despite many more people WFH or working less and streaming more.
personally my work uses nearly no bandwidth. a little Stackoverflow here and there. probably peaks with video calls.
Certainly doesnt use even close to 4k streaming netflix.
Certainly doesnt use even close to 4k streaming netflix.
One can only hope. I absolutely loved Three UK for their unlimited 4G, it was my only Internet provider.
Verizon hasn't even waived data caps for wireless, so I doubt it.
We'd get free electricity and gas too then. Not gonna happen.
The difference is that with gas and electric, there is an increased cost to the utility to deliver more electricity and gas.
With bandwidth there is almost no additional cost to deliver more bandwidth. Yes in aggregate they need to upgrade their equipment, but if they just got rid of data caps tomorrow, they would incur almost no extra cost.
If electricity and gas suddenly became fixed cost, the cost to the utilities would go up dramatically.
With bandwidth there is almost no additional cost to deliver more bandwidth. Yes in aggregate they need to upgrade their equipment, but if they just got rid of data caps tomorrow, they would incur almost no extra cost.
If electricity and gas suddenly became fixed cost, the cost to the utilities would go up dramatically.
> With bandwidth there is almost no additional cost to deliver more bandwidth
Depends how awful your infrastructure is. The big ISP in Ireland was still using microwave links as backhaul for ADSL until at least 2012 or so (in one particularly ridiculous case, a whole village only had 8Mbit/sec backhaul), and I believe there are still some developed countries where that kind of setup is common.
Interestingly, back in the mid noughties, said ISP either gave ADSL customers a 20GB cap or no cap, depending on if their local exchange had a fibre backhaul. To confuse the issue, they referred to the latter as "fibre powered broadband".
Depends how awful your infrastructure is. The big ISP in Ireland was still using microwave links as backhaul for ADSL until at least 2012 or so (in one particularly ridiculous case, a whole village only had 8Mbit/sec backhaul), and I believe there are still some developed countries where that kind of setup is common.
Interestingly, back in the mid noughties, said ISP either gave ADSL customers a 20GB cap or no cap, depending on if their local exchange had a fibre backhaul. To confuse the issue, they referred to the latter as "fibre powered broadband".
The grandparent’s comment still stands.
Upgrading backhaul is a fixed cost. There is no incremental cost for usage.
Very much different than power generation.
Upgrading backhaul is a fixed cost. There is no incremental cost for usage.
Very much different than power generation.
Electricity should happen though with enough renewables.
Turns out "disaster socialism" is a real concept:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/disaster-socialism...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/disaster-socialism...
It's a great time to increase prices if you ask me.
Good thing nobody's asking you then.
Do you think it’s a good time to increase prices?
I enjoy how you edited this from "Did anyone ask you?"
No. Why the hell would the time of a disaster be a good time to increase prices for people who rely on these services.
Go away.
No. Why the hell would the time of a disaster be a good time to increase prices for people who rely on these services.
Go away.
Lol, no, I asked you this question because the other guy said "Did anyone ask you?"
That way you could answer yes to him. It looks like he deleted his comment.
That way you could answer yes to him. It looks like he deleted his comment.
The concept that data caps are somehow uniquely unjust is dumb. Bandwidth is a scarce resource, like seats on a train. Nobody gets mad that the train company charges per ride instead of only selling monthly passes. Be mad that your ISP has a monopoly and charges too much. Don’t be mad about a pricing scheme that is completely reasonable if the prices involved are fair.
I would agree with you if there were evidence to support your claim, but there is not.
Actually there is evidence to the contrary. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2013/02/cable-companies-make-9...
The truth is fiber bandwidth is cheap.
Actually there is evidence to the contrary. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2013/02/cable-companies-make-9...
The truth is fiber bandwidth is cheap.
There's lots of evidence that internet is cheap. Too bad we don't have those ISPs to provide it. Have you ever thought how hard it is to dig a 50m hole in the ground to put fiber in it?
It can be a lot easier than digging trenches. Where I lived I've watched various google & TW contractors running fiber on existing utility poles. It surprised me how fast those guys can move, I'm talking a couple guys and a truck can probably do a few miles a day. Last time I saw it, they had a couple trucks doing some prep work ahead of a guy literally walking along under the cable pulling that spinner thing. They had wired from the office building I was in, down the road a couple miles, by lunch.
(random youtube video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMjCvMxp-M
(random youtube video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMjCvMxp-M
Most people move fast if they are paid accordingly.
I have thought about that problem a -lot-, actually. It used to be my job; determine the best route from a cost standpoint, draw it up, and then convince everyone to let you do it. (And thus began my love for LISP...)
You don't dig 50m into the ground, unless you were referring to the length and not the depth. But if you did mean depth, I've done designs where the dig depth was under 4 feet. Usually this involved either special products for purpose (Look up Vertical Deflecting Conduit) or literally just a straight trench along a state highway. (Not gonna comment on the security of that practice...)
But if you meant 50m in distance off the backbone, you're right. because that last 50M to a residence -is- the hard part in a lot of cases. That's why one of the things negotiated in a lot of franchise agreements (which range between a permission to build all the way to a locally sanctioned monopoly) includes is a 'minimum homes passed per mile'. Which basically states that if a route passes at least X homes in Y distance, the Cable co cannot charge a prospective customer for the buildout to their residence.
Doing the 'last mile' is the most expensive part of any network.
One might start to ask if this is part of why these Cable cos are so hyped on the 5G; It makes it possible for 'fringe' customers to still be offered wireless products.
What the Tele/Cable cos did with all of that federal grant money in the early 2000s and with the stimulus packages resulting from the 2008 recession was build up their backbone structure substantially. Many of the projects I did were designed to specs along the lines of 'Go up to the next 48 count interval, then double that.' So if we needed 28 fibers to feed a system, we'd put 96 in the ground in that case.)
Which means that rather than use that stimulus money to build out more of those last miles, in most cases it instead went into revenue stream of fiber leasing. Many of the projects I worked on involved Cable companies leasing that dark fiber they built up to the cell carriers for capacity in the rollout to 4G.
Bonus points because in most cases they weren't even doing any multiplexing on the fiber (something that could be done by adding additional equipment but not having to replace any fiber.)
You don't dig 50m into the ground, unless you were referring to the length and not the depth. But if you did mean depth, I've done designs where the dig depth was under 4 feet. Usually this involved either special products for purpose (Look up Vertical Deflecting Conduit) or literally just a straight trench along a state highway. (Not gonna comment on the security of that practice...)
But if you meant 50m in distance off the backbone, you're right. because that last 50M to a residence -is- the hard part in a lot of cases. That's why one of the things negotiated in a lot of franchise agreements (which range between a permission to build all the way to a locally sanctioned monopoly) includes is a 'minimum homes passed per mile'. Which basically states that if a route passes at least X homes in Y distance, the Cable co cannot charge a prospective customer for the buildout to their residence.
Doing the 'last mile' is the most expensive part of any network.
One might start to ask if this is part of why these Cable cos are so hyped on the 5G; It makes it possible for 'fringe' customers to still be offered wireless products.
What the Tele/Cable cos did with all of that federal grant money in the early 2000s and with the stimulus packages resulting from the 2008 recession was build up their backbone structure substantially. Many of the projects I did were designed to specs along the lines of 'Go up to the next 48 count interval, then double that.' So if we needed 28 fibers to feed a system, we'd put 96 in the ground in that case.)
Which means that rather than use that stimulus money to build out more of those last miles, in most cases it instead went into revenue stream of fiber leasing. Many of the projects I worked on involved Cable companies leasing that dark fiber they built up to the cell carriers for capacity in the rollout to 4G.
Bonus points because in most cases they weren't even doing any multiplexing on the fiber (something that could be done by adding additional equipment but not having to replace any fiber.)
After we the taxpayers paid them $400B to cover that expense, and the telecomms pocketed it, I have the world's smallest violin to play for this particular argument.
https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/11/27/americans-...
https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/11/27/americans-...
This is a bad reference that completely misrepresents the economics of the situation.
The unit cost of bandwidth is obviously very low, that's not where the costs come in for ISPs. To suggest that Verizon is on 97% margins while ignoring all of the other costs is to promote financial illiteracy.
If ISPs were actually doing 97% net margins, they'd be the 10x bigger than Google.
The surpluses are in fact in high tech companies like Google and Facebook - they are the ones with 'massive margins' wherein there's obviously more opportunity for competition.
There's probably an economic case for pricing alteration, but gross misinformation is not going to help.
FYI: VZ's actual income statement [1]
[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/vz/financials
The unit cost of bandwidth is obviously very low, that's not where the costs come in for ISPs. To suggest that Verizon is on 97% margins while ignoring all of the other costs is to promote financial illiteracy.
If ISPs were actually doing 97% net margins, they'd be the 10x bigger than Google.
The surpluses are in fact in high tech companies like Google and Facebook - they are the ones with 'massive margins' wherein there's obviously more opportunity for competition.
There's probably an economic case for pricing alteration, but gross misinformation is not going to help.
FYI: VZ's actual income statement [1]
[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/vz/financials
The lifting of caps in a crisis suggests that it's not a scarce resource. If they can lift caps in an emergency, why can't they lift them permanently?
Perhaps they can make a case that they're borrowing resources that they'll have to pay back, or causing degradation in ways that will cost them later. But it doesn't seem reasonable to say "we just don't have the available capacity" when clearly they do.
Perhaps they can make a case that they're borrowing resources that they'll have to pay back, or causing degradation in ways that will cost them later. But it doesn't seem reasonable to say "we just don't have the available capacity" when clearly they do.
Completely disagree. There are software solutions for bandwidth issues, such as throttling, that don't require putting the burden on customers.
My school did this when I was an undergrad. The top 100 users on campus often used more than half the bandwidth. That was fine and the school was more than happy for them to use the internet heavily - the connection had already been paid for, might as well have it used. However, the school did put them at a lower priority when there was congestion. Most of the heavy users didn't even notice.
I'm really hopeful that wireless technologies will improve competition over the next decade. If three wireless companies can provide home broadband competition in the future, we won't be beholden to the single provider that most of us deal with now. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all bought a bunch of millimeter wave spectrum in the latest auction (in addition to their current holdings). T-Mobile is gearing up for a big home broadband push. They're hoping to have 9.5M home broadband customers in the next three years which would probably make them the third largest after Comcast and Charter who have around 26-27M I believe (and around double Fios' customer base). Having even a little competition would mean that they'd have to compete for my business rather than being able to hike prices every year.