Metered Bandwidth

actually, i really wasn't arguing if it could be done or not. my post came off with the wrong attitude and it really wasn't meant to be directed at you. what i was really thinking was,

"wow this guy needs to get a life if he'll go through all the trouble to steal some shitty cable internet access"

wait, what is a network?

How many of you actually run something like DUmeter to record/project bandwidth? You say oh, 10GB would be fine, when infact you're thinking yeah I can download x# linux iso's or stream this much video etc. The actual usage is MUCH higher. Just the protocols chew up bytes you didn't even know about. Put it this way, my DUmeter says this month of June so far I have downloaded 3.94GB. Honestly the only bandwidth consuming things I did were download 3 files, ~100MB piece, and watch the korn live webcast of mtv.com. The rest is just email, reloading shack/slashdot/hardocp/wunderground/scifi wire/misc.

I think some of you who think 10GB is a lot (on a line that you could get 200-500+GB a month) will be _SORELY_ disappointed when you get your cable bill. According to some in use rates of $0.80 per 100MB over, I could possibly recieve a bill of $3717.00 in one month.

Not to mention last month I got DDOS'd for 12 hours at 181+KBps. Even if I turned off my computer, my modem is still receiving.. I wonder if it would be logged even if I turned off the cablemodem, probably.

I have given this some thought over the past year or two. Bandwidth will become another utility such as gas, water, phone and electricity once the infrastucture is put into place. Once every home/business in America has fiber or some other superfast connection (ie. 10 or 100 megabit connections) you will pay for what you use. And I don't think it will be a bad thing, as long as the whole system is setup right. There will need to be some sort of governing body and regulations put in place so that people in certain areas don't pay 5x as much as people in other areas.

Pricing will become competitive. There will be different carriers for data, just like there are different carriers for long distance. You might be able to connect through 1010.com and get 100 mb for $1.00 while 1020.com gets you 200 mb for $175. Other companies might offer slower speeds at reduced rates.

This way, the people who use the most, pay the most. Just like with water or power. I use a lot of power every month, because I am too lazy to turn off lights, tv's and computers. Do I complain when I get my power bill? No, because I am willing to pay for my laziness. Same with bandwidth. If one month I burn through 50GB, then I will have to pay for it. If I don't want a big bill, I will have limit my downloads.

Now I don't really see this happening within the next 5 years, but give it time and it will happen.

This is certainly a step in the wrong direction.

For those of you who are so overjoyed about the end of pirating, have you neglected to consider _other_ facets of the internet that might take up bandwidth?

Introduce caps and you can wave goodbye steaming video/audio, videoconfrencing, hosting your own webpage, etc. There are simply too many other services that will get hosed.

I agree with ISPs doing bandwidth shaping (throttling certain ports, especially P2P ones) to free up bandwidth. However, when customers are charged extra merely for using their service to the fullest extent, I do not agree. By charging per gig, they will screw over a lot of their customers, particularly ones with unknowing kids downloading BRITNEYSPEARS@$@@!!~!!!!

I've been screwed over by ISPs more than once. Believe me, charging for extra usage is not a good thing (tm)

I have no problem with ISP's capping people at 5 or 6 gigs then charging them after that.

This is old news... already reported a few weeks ago on /.

I agree 100% with the idea that those who use more bandwidth should pay more for that luxury and the only truly sucky part I can see with the cable companies plans is the fact that in all likelihood nobody's monthly rate is going to drop... only go up for the "heavy" users.

99.9% of the users who think a 20 or 30gb per month cap is "ridiculous" are most likely concerned that their free pirated cratm] are going to end. Perhaps .1% have a perfectly legitimate need for that much data being transferred, but most people don't. You can stream music ALL DAY EVERYDAY and play online games ALL DAY EVERYDAY and download 500mbs of files EVERYDAY and you're only transferring about 60gbs a month and few of us NEED to do that 24 hours a day EVERYDAY.

Im on broadband... and I just don't get why people have to run ftp's. You know you are screwing everyone else out of bandwith so why do you do it!

Also how do you use a sniffer to see if people are moving incredible amounts of data all the time

I wish I had cable or dsl or wireless via cellular :(. Out here we don't have anything but 26400bps.

its stupid plans like this that have ruined broadband in australia before it even took off.

from nearly day one we've been getting fucked over by telstra and optus and as such there isn't a high demand for their version of what they call "broadband"

i dont understand why people call it "abuse" to use lots of bandwidth....the reason why you pay for broadband is so you have lots of bandwidth! if you pay so much a month for broadband then you expect to be able to use it. its the providers fault if they cant keep up with demand.

Well here's a thought. While I agree that people don't need to download 50GB a month, I think some here believe that less downloads == better pings and better service.
That won't happen, I am pretty damn sure.

Maybe you can pay less for the lower bandwidth limits, but this whole "your service is slower because of the warez monkeys" sounds too much like "CDs are so expensive because of the evil intarweb pirates".

Something to think about. Again, there should be limits but those should be much higher than what, say, online gaming 24/7 causes; otherwise it's too restrictive IMO.

So I was at a business meeting today with Cox HSI Business and the sales guy brought a senior tech (he mostly handles the fiber roll out for cox these days but hes done it all) so I wouldn't confuse the sales guys with questions about this and that. Well, when the meeting was over I asked him what he thought / if he thought it would come here. His conclusion is that right now there is no good bit counter. If you are going to charge someone by the bit, you have to have a VERY good system to monitor that so that when there are complaints, it can be backed up. He said that Cox has nothing like that right now. He thinks that if something were ever to come out that acurately meter bandwidth like power is metered today, then probably every single ISP out there would switch to a pay for what you use. He also thinks that will never happen because for what money his company loses on people like me, I keep the pipe full and keep the need for adding more fiber lines (his job) going. Basically if everyone out there that pays $40/mo for cable that would under a bit-meter system pay $20/mo - cox would be hurting bad and if they wanted to make a proffit, the people that barely use their connection now would probably end up paying the same. All in all as we discussed it, we decided it was a friggen mess for the consumer and for his company and for him as an employee

Oh well... like this wasn't expected? I think its a pretty sad statement though, as it only shows how weak the friggin market is that it can't support unmetered bandwidth for its users. Especially with bandwidth being pretty damned cheap these days. It just shows that the internet industry is really not in a good spot, and probably won't be.

I gotta say, I used to think you Americans had it good with bandwidth and ping times - I must say per mb downloads and max speeds you thrash us (people move 50gb and @ 1000kb a second etc) over there sometimes.


However in .AU the ping times are EXCEPTIONAL on the broadband providers we have (like 15->60 max for gaming servers)

Cue "This is Australia....."

You poor bastards.

So lemme see if I got this right from what's been said so far here...

1) DSL is better (yup, I got dsl)
2) Broadband suxors because the providers wanna cap bandwidth usage
3) Broadband suxors because it's expensive and the price keeps going up
4) Broadband suxors because other people use your bandwidth upstream from your connection
5) Broadband suxors because big media companies are in cahoots with recording/movie industry to kill P2P file sharing.
6) Broadband suxors because of unreliable up/down speeds from too many simultaneous users.
7) Broadband caps threaten not just P2P, but online gaming (OMG!)

So...

#1 Winna!

I think ALL ISP's should traffic shape Kazaa / AG / Napster and those kind of tools to around 30kb a second in / out for EVERYONE - globally.

If not tighter, because those particular apps would be 80% of the reason of these problems exist, people downloading shit they don't even want.

Nearly all of the broadband providers are media conglomerates. They are thinking they have to take steps to change where things are headed. Everyday Joe's armed with file sharing programs and affordable, unlimited bandwidth are a major pain in their sides. Now they are charging you for the media you obtain one way or another. You can download Vanilla Sky, or Deer Hunter 5, or Barely Legal 17 but you're going to see it on your broadband bill in the form of surcharges for the extra bandwidth you used.
They have the cabling under their control so they can charge whatever they want for it's use. If ever their was a major breakthrough some day in wireless technology a "people's internet" would surely spring up.

There are plenty of legitimate uses for broadband even in the realm of entertainment. Like multiplayer gaming! But I hate that broadband is getting this reputation as mainly a tool of piracy, because I would still want broadband even if I couldn't get "Where the Boys Aren't 2" delivered to my hard drive.

If this happens I simply won't go online. Enough said. I'll just wait until college when we only have metered bandwidth per day (if you don't use it all you can save it for another day).

That'll be fine with me. Most college limits (only like 10% limit) are around 750mb - 1gb per day, which isn't all that bad.

Over the long term, this would kill broadband, so it wont happen. Who wants to pay $40 a month for a service if you can only use it likes it's a dialup?

Personally I'd like to see this kind of structure for access:

Base connect:
Low speed (512/128): $30 with 2GB included (perfect for the "email checker")
Med speed (1mbit/256): $35 with 5GB included (typical user)
High speed (2mbit+/384): $45 with 10GB included (junkie)

Each addition gig would be sold at a reasonable rate, say like $1 or $2/gig. I think this would be a fairly reasonable model for both the provider and user.

The only way to justify paying extra for bandwidth is to download warez. If you download enough, it pays for itself.


Note: This is an attempt at satire. I do not condone software piracy.

i already have that : 6 gig down 1 gig up a month limit...

I am on shaw cable
and it is excellent(altho they are a bit tight with the bandwidth)
(i used to be on rogers , and used to have an ftp), as soon as shaw took over from rogers
they bust me , within a week , of the takeover
but , i am willing to sacrifice my ftp for a low ping and fast dload
the bandwidth sharing is not usually an issue if the isp maintains there hardware
or adds new hardware , with increasing user's
i dont see any slow downs at any time of the day
in short
shaw roxors!

and this my friends is why cable modems and shared bandwidth have always been far inferior to private lines and isdn/dsl setups.

Download 'em while you got 'em.
DOWNLOADING SPREE!

DECREASING OVERALL INTARWEB TRAFFIC = GOOD FOR MY PINGS
I hope this goes into effect...I got speakeasy RADSL, and I am peered with Seattle (I live in Austin, TX). My first hop is 80ms, and I am at least 150 to ANY speakeasy Q3 server in existance. Yeah, so cable it is for me.

Optimum online is excellent. Its a service of Cablevision. Cablevision serves the tri-state area (Norther NJ, Southern NY/Long Island, and Lower Conneticut) MY dad's friend designed the system for our area. He said he went all out, no bandwith restrictions. And its great I ping ~20 to Q3 servers and easily get 500kb/s. The service has been around for about 3 years too so there are a lot of people on it. The only time I notice a bandwith drop is when I am uploading at insane speeds, even when I do have simealtaneous uploads of ~50kb/s each my ping jumps into the low 100s.

This is an example of an excellently designed network. No matter what time of the day I always get great speeds.

So what? My ISP has been doing this from Day One. I get 512K down, 128K up (that part sucks) and 10GB of bandwidth a month. Go over my limit and I pay more money. I've never managed to go over my limit. Ever.

Rogers Internet raised the price of their service by $5 recently, up to $45 a month Canadian. They never said a word about it, just *poof*.

I've pretty much had it with the pricing. The service is decent pretty much, but $45 a month is too much. I'd rather go back to a modem I think. $45 a month adds up quick :(

WideOpenWest is already close to this....you can buy different levels of service (I think there's 1mbps at the lowest level, I have 3mbps, and you can get 10mbps).

still, why pay for all this bandwidth if we're not using it? That's the whole fucking point of having an always on/dedicated line.

You know, I can't find any reasons to side with the cable company. This isn't long distance phone calling, this is the internet. It's a network, it's governed by different principles and the two primary goals of any network are more/faster.

They've (the cable companies) been selling their service as a "high speed internet connection" since 1997, and they get pissed when their customers use it as such. When someone says "high speed internet connection," I immediately think of all the things that can be done with it. Downloading mass quantities of files, multiplayer gaming, streaming media, etc. All of these things take more bandwidth, and guess what, as time marches on, they are only going to take more bandwidth, because everyone is doing everything they can to provide more and flashier content.

I think it's fine to make people pay a premium, and in the areas where competition will prevent it, there isn't much to worry about, pricewise. Speakeasy offers a great example of how that should be done. They offer a great service with low latency, and they sell it based on how much bandwidth you want. They also have very loose AUPs, and unless someone complains, you don't have anything to worry about.

Cable internet connections are different. They've been slowly taking all the good things about cable, out of cable connections. Cable internet has always had more lag than most DSL connections because they often route everything to every hub in their network across the US before it hits an actual backbone.

I guess what I'm saying is, keep doing it cable companies. Keep taking the wind out of your own sails, and people will look elsewhere for internet connections. Bandwidth usage is expected to go up over time, not down, so they either need to grow with these expectations or get out of the game. Just wait and see how well this business paradigm works when fiber to curb gets rolled out in more locations.

MAAAACHINE....
Kill them ALL, Machine...

Anyone doing a few quick multiplications and divisions will soon find that a 5GB'ish limit per month works out to a maximum allowed bandwidth of something like 2-3kB/s. That's spread out over all 24 hours of course, so in a more realistic (heh) usage of 6 hours per day it's like 12kB/s. Anyone mut me find the math behind these limits amusuing to no end?

But hey, maybe Steve can make some more money of ShackDSL now? =)

This is a dumb idea. Take away my bandwidth and there is NO reason for me not to go back to dial up or even DSL. They will lose money hand over fist.

where's Canadia? i can't find it on my globe, all i see is the united states and a bunch of colors i don't recognise.

Some Canadian Shackers? How is Shaw? I read 8000/1000 on DSLReports; is that right? I am moving to Saskatoon in July from the US...