Verizon did something interesting with their wireless network: they track heavy bandwidth users and throttle them during peak traffic periods. [1]<p>That seems like a more reasonable option than hard traffic caps. It's no surprise more wired ISPs aren't using that strategy, though... hard caps generate revenue, while rate limiting heavy users doesn't. That wouldn't be such a problem if there were healthy competition in most metro markets, but there isn't.<p>Verizon FIOS is one of the few good [fast] U.S. wireline ISP options left that doesn't cap traffic. It's too bad many markets are still de-facto duopolies (from the days when there was a meaningful distinction between "telephone" and "cable" companies aside from layers 1-2). FIOS isn't available here, and if it were I'd switch in a heartbeat because of AT&T's incompetence [2].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.tekgoblin.com/2011/02/03/verizon-to-throttle-high-bandwidth-users/" rel="nofollow">http://www.tekgoblin.com/2011/02/03/verizon-to-throttle-high...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/users/2011-02/msg00074.html" rel="nofollow">http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/users/2011-02/msg00...</a>
My I.S.P. (Frontier) wanted to cap DSL at 5 GB a month!<p>I'm not against metered billing, in principle, but the rates would have to be reflective of what it costs to provision the marginal bandwidth.<p>The bandwidth cap issue highlights two crises that the industry faces: (i) the nature of fiber optic networks is such that it's several orders of magnitude cheaper to move data between hubs in major cities than it is to move it over the "last mile" to the consumer and (ii) video streaming from Youtube, Netflix and other providers is starting to provide real competition for cable television.<p>(i) leads to pricing schemes that don't reflect the cost of provisioning services; installing the "last mile" might cost a few thousand dollars up front, but this gets amortized over bills that a customer pays over a long time. Upgrading a customer to a higher speed tier is the only way that the ISP can offer "better service for more money" to a customer but the increase almost certainly won't be reflective of the difference in costs. As we've seen in the airline industry, crazy pricing leads to pathology in the long time.<p>As for (ii), ISP's can't be seen as good actors when they are in the competitive cable television business. As customers turn on to streaming video, utilization is outpacing the rate at which ISPs want to invest in infrastructure -- and in the long term, the many ISPs which are cable providers realize that customers who've got access to Netflix and other streaming video services might decide they don't need to blow $80 a month for 500 channels full of crap.
Why can't people apply non-internet concepts to the internet/ISPs? Do utilities give you unlimited electricity, gas, and water? Of course not. Does everyone who goes to McDonald's pay a flat fee of $5 and get as much as they want? Resources are scarce and the people who voluntarily provide them shouldn't be required by law to provide it infinitely without charging more or capping usage.
What are these "data caps" you people are talking about? We don't have them on regular broadband, mobile broadband or mobile internet here?<p>Kind regards,
Sweden
The root problem is a lack of competition.<p>Ideas like government forcing service competition over the physical lines along easements granted by the a government should be explored.
Comcast has 250GB/month cap. If you go over it, you are put on the lowest plan (no matter what you are paying) until they decide you can handle it.<p>I went over it by about 100GB last month and I got my service turned off. I wasn't even downloading torrents.
One day we'll have a solid wireless option that can compete with physical lines. It will be just as disruptive as cell phones were to land lines. That's the only way you get around the massive barrier to entry that is running physical utility lines. One day.
FCC can't even enforce net-neutrality, they certainly will not be able to do a darn thing about caps (if they even really care).<p>250 GB cap seems huge to me though, unless maybe you have a multi-user household. I have a 50 GB cap but it doesn't seem to be enforced (yet).
How many ISPs actually enforce their caps? Genuine question- my ISP, Cox, technically has about a 100GB limit, but I know I've downloaded close to 1TB in a month with no overages, throttling, or anything.
I had no idea data caps were this frequent. I am all about net neutrality and the more selective throttling and data caps our data providers implement, the less innovation we will see.