joerockhead

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I know I do not use this much Bandwidth, but it sounds like the easy way out for the mega rich giant.

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shiiboi

They're starting with relatively high bandwidth caps because of the backlash against Time Warner's and others extremely low (~5GB) 'experimental' limits. Watch, though, more tiers of service will be added gradually as consumers get used to the idea. It's like cooking a live frog by putting it in a pot of cold water and gradually turning up the heat until it boils. Soon, every internet user will find themselves being branded 'bandwidth hogs' and levied with higher fees.

These days the major ISP's are also the major providers of TV / on-demand movie services. Internet-based entertainment is a major source of future competition for these services, so they are trying to use their position to choke internet-based entertainment to death. It's economics 101: if you want to discourage the use of something, add a 'tax' on top of its cost and usage will decline. In their business model, the internet is for email, tv is for movies and other video entertainment.

adrenaline

The cap is rediculously high.. But they should just offer bandwitdth service tiers then.

licupssy

Yeah, it puts a kink in Comcast Triple play if you go to TV over the internet and by a handy jack to plug your phone into your usb port.



Yeah, question is are they going to let you know if your paying for more bandwith than you need. Back in the old days the phone company use to notify you when you were paying for services you really didn't need.

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I solemnly swear that I am up to no good! ~~~SWTWC

maggiesdragons

I did that already... its only $55 a month plus $24 for the internet phone...

elfoozo

Is it? Is it really??

One HD movie is around 8 GB in size. Pretend you subscribed to that fancy new HD Internet based TV service. Unless my math is bad (and it usually is) that'll only net you about 1.5 singular viewing hours per day under their cap. Got multiple TV's? Start doubling things.

No problem right? You *love* metering your cell phone minutes today, don't you?

Let's be realistic about what really is going on here. These big companies have run around for the past almost 10 years pushing "unlimited downloads" and now that people start taking them up on it, they want to throttle service instead of putting those profits into maintaining and upgrading their shit.

And the beauty of it all is YOU, Average Consumer, can't exactly tell that cable provider to fuck off and go with the competing local cable company... because there usually isn't one!

lissof

hrm i use around that a month..

well in august i only used 230 gigs....

so i don't find that limit that high. i was looking at getting vonage or use skype i would use a lot more. i think that it is to limit the competition on phones and entertainment.

well in july i used 180 gigs and in june i used 157 gigs...

adrenaline

yep. I'm the average consumer. I don't own a cellular phone. I don't have cable Tv. Im only paying 30 bucks a month for internet and land line.



I've been fucked by Charter in the past.. will NEVER go back to them.. I never hear anything good from Comcast subscribers, and lets be clear, I don't agree with them limiting your bandwidth, but if they are going to do so, they should make it known and offer tiers.

I do wish there were more local based companies.

thecowboy

Cable service, like electrical service and water service, are natural monopolies. You only have one cable line running into your house, right? Someone owns that cable, say, comcast. If a local company wanted to provide service, they are going to have to pay comcast to use those lines in order to provide you service. Hence, their costs will go up, and you will pay more. The only reason you don't see comcast as the only company is because they're too smart to get too big and be demolished through the antitrust laws (i.e. AT&T, exact same situation).

The only real solution to a natural monopoly is government regulation. That's why you see government influence in terms of either rate setting, or completely owning utilities like electricity, water, natural gas, etc. So until tv and internet service become a "utility," the prices will stay high.

As a counter example, look at cell-phone service. Nobody owns the "lines" so it becomes a very competitive market.

Bipolar

If this becomes a reality then I for one will hate it as i usually d/l over twice that a month. i have even gone as far as close to a tb in one month. ( was d/l pretty much nonstop)

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DDGuy

This thread makes me laugh.......I live with 2.5 GB a month....




......put yr jaws right back in :-)

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elfoozo

If you dig in to this you'll find that in many areas (maybe even all areas?) the local municipality, or associations of such, own the rights of way, poles, hardlines, etc. and contracts with service provisioning 3rd parties like Comcast for the rights to serve and to maintain those lines, plus provide the electronics. And usually the 3rd party gives free service to local schools and official buildings. A small perk to provide for the luxury of raping each community.

The loving and protecting government already is involved.

licupssy

Yeah, here the local town or possibility the county holds the right of way. My deed list the location of the right of way in it. Which was a problem about ten or twenty years ago. For years the telephone lines were in the front of our houses. Then came Cable TV and they did the same thing. Someone must have gotten pissed because a couple years later everything had to be moved to the back of our properties with the electric lines.

As far as it goes the companies provide there own cables and equipment. I think the poles are owned by the electric company. So I suppose the other companies pay them for access rather than install their own poles.

We have Verizon, Comcast and RCN, all with their own cables. As far as telephone companies go, they lease lines off of Verizon. I don't know how many companies still provide hard wired phone service now.

In areas of low population density, it probably isn't worth the cost to provide the cables and equipment. Down where my daughter lives in southern Maryland the cable providers may use the same cable but they have separate phone lines.

___________________________________________

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good! ~~~SWTWC

thecowboy

Well, then you know what to do there voter. In your first post, didn't you argue that it was the big companies to blame? Can you really blame a company for wanting to make money when they are given monopoly power by local government? What do you want them to do? If the local government really owns the lines, it is their fault for not selling the right to use them to the lowest bidder.