Time-Warner and Comcast testing out internet capping.

[Spastic]

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-timewarnercable-internet.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&oref=slogin).

So for all us US residents this is sort of a big deal. Right now two major cable companies are testing out capped internet to select regions. Basically what capping means, is that you have a download limit per month, other countries do the same thing, and generally it blows.

I have never heard of internet capping here in the US, but if things go "well" with Comcast and Time-Warner, it could be picked up by other ISP's and be the norm here. This would be a huge hit to many people who download more than your average user, or who use a lot of bandwidth.

I myself completely disagree with the idea of capping people's internet. Paying for how much downloading you do seems stupid to me, and it just seems like they are trying to take advantage of people. Post your thoughts on the subject here, and if you live in a region where you have capped internet feel free to join in and tell us about your experiences with it.

[Desert]

What's the point of this exactly? It seems stupid.

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[frescoSteph]

Obviously no one will disagree with you. Capping internet is dumb. But I could see how it would make sure you knew who was on your internet. In California, it's legal to log on to someone elses network and essentially steal their internet. I figure, since Time Warner cannot change the law, they'd change the internet. Thats what I would think. I work for one of those cable companys and I havn't heard anything like this, so, surprise! Hopefully they keep this billing out of California.

[Spastic]

Internet capping and people logging onto your network because you have little/no protection is not the same thing. I myself use Time-Warner and would hate to be capped. I know Comcast already does some shady stuff to people who download more than Comcast would like them too, so it doesn't surprise me coming from them.

[spaj]

At the high end, a $54.90 monthly fee for a 15-megabit-per-second service and a 40 gigabyte monthly limit would allow subscribers to watch 124 hours of standard-definition videos or download 11,070 songs.

I'm paying more in Belgium and I have a 17GB/month limit, with an extra 5 euro cost to increase my bandwidth by 5 GB... As a 'capped' user I can honestly say it's a pain in the ass.

The real issue with capping is that some users may perhaps not be too friendly with the bandwidth/capping system in general. I remember when my internet starting slowing down randomly a year and a half ago no one in my family, including myself, actually even had a clue that it was our bandwidth limit that was exceeded that was slowing it down.

I don't see really the issue with capping. To be fair, they have clearly stated they're going to use revenue in improving infrastructure which has a couple of long term benefits. You'll get used to it though, and hopefully these companies won't keep you in the dark with their future plans with their newfound revenue.

[Dauntasa]

Caps are annoying, but as long as it isn't too low, it isn't that big a deal. I live in Canada, and my internet is capped at 60GB, but I've never had a problem with it. Unless they make a completely unreasonable cap, I doubt you'll even notice.

[ToastmasterAlpha]

Shit, I have Time Warner. Economically, I understand the reasoning behind it, but I don't see why the consumers, the ones who made these companies successful by adopting the Internet, now have to be punished for "overusing" it.

[Matterialize]

This isn't anything new, in general. :ahe: I'm assuming that they're discontinuing any "unlimited" internet services? That sucks. If I were to pay for the most expensive plan, though, I'd be paying just a little more than I currently am for my unlimited internet and it'd probably be more than enough for me.

[Spastic]

Not in general no, nor did I ever say it was. That's why I specifically put "So for all us US residents this is sort of a big deal." Yes, unlimited internet will be discontinued wherever caps are being put in, for those ISP's anyways. I myself download WAY more than 40 gigs a month, and that is their most expensive plan. I heard from someone that Verizon will never put a cap into place, so I can always switch to Vios, if worse comes to worse.

[opn4bzns]

I find it difficult to have much sympathy given that that's still a much better deal than Australian internet. Can't you just switch isp, anyway? I mean it's a pain to do but it seems like a pretty logical step if other isps still have unlimited plans.

[Clerlic]

That's strange, most other countries have been trying to get rid of any download caps.

[Homemaster]

Yeah, in Australia we have caps, I have a 12 gig a month cap and have never had any trouble with it. That was until last month, but silly me, I downloaded CS and TF2 not during the off-peak times. Really there's nothing wrong with doing this.

[Mirrorman]

I'm really thankful that we don't have any cap here. I spend ALOT of my time on the net, and download plenty of stuff with torrents, so I'd be fucked. I feel sorry for you and hope this never comes here.

[Axidos]

I have a 20gb cap and I've never had a problem with it. If your monthly downloads are too low for too much money, hunt for a better deal. Smaller providers sometimes offer much better deals than any large provider corporation. My internet is quite cheap and it's with a smaller provider.

You'll get used to it, and it has benefits. Internet caps means a little less torrenting. Less torrenting means faster internet overall.
Remember that topic in here saying the internet will run out of bandwidth in a few years? Torrenting is taking up a whole stack of that bandwidth and less torrenting makes the situation a little less immediate. Recently the largest torrent tracker in Iceland was shut down, and internet traffic across Ireland immediately dropped by 50%.

This is for the better in the long term.

Download less.

[Tweek]

Well that is a ridiculous thing to say, the internet is there to be used, not rationed off as if it is a rarity or a privilege for only those who can afford it.

The internet is representative of our generation as a medium of unparalleled freedom of speech and expression of ideas, and to restrict the usage of the internet in any way is essentially counter-productive to that freedom.

[TangerineOrange]

So if I'm understanding this correctly this is 1.) A way to get more money from the consumers and 2.) A way to say "Hey! We suddenly got faster internet!", when in fact they haven't done anything to make it faster, but simply limited people's downloading.

I'm curious to see what they'll charge is prices once this goes into effect. In my area, Road Runner had been $50 a month and I think only really recently dropped to $30 a month (and that might have only been available with a special package, I don't know). I wonder if they'll be like "It's $40 for "faster" internet! It's worth it!" And in fact, they're just limiting downloading.

[OoooF4LiFe]

Well that is a ridiculous thing to say, the internet is there to be used, not rationed off as if it is a rarity or a privilege for only those who can afford it.

The internet is representative of our generation as a medium of unparalleled freedom of speech and expression of ideas, and to restrict the usage of the internet in any way is essentially counter-productive to that freedom.

Couldn't have said it any better. Reguardless of if the internet is going to "crash" or not, it's to be used to it's fullest. Any short of that, is infringing on it's endless possibilities and interraction.

Not to mention Comcast will be making me pay the same amount for half of what I already use. I can't even imagine how shitty gaming speeds would get. Pretty much any gamer ever requires massive bandwidth. :argh:

[Homemaster]

Dude, trust me gaming speeds don't go down UNLESS you go over. Gaming doesn't use that much compared to watching endless youtube and downloading porn.

It's like fuel; we've had it cheap for ages and now prices are going up. Complain. Get used to something good, and then can't handle when regulations come into play.

[Clerlic]

What's the point of having "faster" internet, when you'll only be able to download 1 thing per month with it? I, for example, spend about a gigabyte of bandwidth every day just listening to internet radio. If they're so scared about the bandwidth running out, they should just install better lines use the newest optic fibre technologies. If this happened in Finland, or Sweden or something, there'd be people protesting all over the place.

This "testing out" should give bad results, so you guys should complain about it as much as you can, otherwise it might result in more than just a test, companies do that. For example, Valve has been "testing out" advertisements in CS for over 2 years now.

[Dodger]

I download shit all the time, I'm pretty sure I've never paid for anything on my computer other than my tablet. If this "cap" shit were to hinder my ability to do that, I'd be pretty pissed, and I imagine I wouldn't be the only one. I already loathe big business because of it's habit to sacrifice and exploit their consumer for profits.
I see this being similar to the whole gas crisis going on, they hooked us on it and are upping the prices slowly to gradually milk us for everything we've got. Geez, I hate monopolies.

[Axidos]

This "testing out" should give bad results, so you guys should complain about it as much as you can, otherwise it might result in more than just a test, companies do that. For example, Valve has been "testing out" advertisements in CS for over 2 years now.

I have to agree. If you don't like something about it, then the corporations need to know that. If they get heaps of bad feedback they're obviously not going to go through with these experiments.

I hope this isn't taken as a "shut up and do something about it" post, it certainly isn't.

[SiX]

Comcast is the worst rated company in the US and have been for a bit so I don't think they really care.

[poematik14]

Thank god I have FiOS.

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[Ommurg]

I hate the cap I have as a wild blue customer (which I now think is actually owned bye comcast). I'ts at 17GB a month so you have to be careful to not download many videos, because they limit download speed when it hits only 70% capacity.

[Hunnter]

The backbone needs an upgrade, that is the real solution.
This capping will just piss off most people, especially those who are used to "unlimited" access, and if it is indeed a 40gig limit and no more packages above that, then they are completely and utterly stupid.
Why are they limiting their own profit when, believe it or not, people will actually pay for more than 40gigs?
I'm on a 40gig limit here myself, but i don't think i have ever hit it, but on my last ISP, i went over it several times, but they never complained much (read: never)

I wonder how long before the bandwidth problem comes under the eyes of the government.
If anything, i think all you people over in America should start writing letters to people demanding the grid be updated to solve the internet crisis.

[Ox]

There's capped internet here. It's called a Download Limit and if you don't want it, you go to an ISP that doesn't have it. It's not a big deal. I'm sure you'll find that most internet services are "Subject to fair usage".

[poematik14]

Isn't Japan's internet nationalized? Because their internet is super super cheap and is faster than anything here. I believe our government should step in, and build a stronger network infrastructure, and then give us free ultra fast internet with a more efficient network and just raise our taxes a tiny but to justify it.

[d4v3]

I used to work for an ISP in the UK. They had a capping process, if the user went over their monthly bandwidth allowance they would just get stuck behind a firewall so all they could access was the ISPs website to buy more bandwidth (at £1.60 / GB).

The offered packages of 1GB usage up to 20GB. The top package was 20GB per month and then unlimited between the hours of 0200 and 0700 which is pretty shocking.

Because it was a small company and had to pay BT for using the lines and bandwidth they couldn't not charge the customers, they were losing money before hand. I'm not sure how it works in America? Do you have a company which is in charge of all the lines and then other companies rent the line from them?

The caps are crap and just confuse people, the amount of calls we would take getting closer to the end of the month which were just people who couldn't get online because they had gone over their bandwidth quota was crazy. Especially annoying when the had hard reset their router to try and connect and you would have to talk someone through setting up a router.

[Step2]

It's 2000 lbs of bullshit is what it is. I download WAY more then the average user. It would be a big problem for me if they started capping people's downloads. :| I don't think this'll ever pass.

[Intestiny Destiny]

I don't think this'll ever pass.

It already has.

[Step2]

It already has.

I mean on a more global scale, not just selected regions.

[hardcoresk8r69]

If we pay the same thing for this capped as we are paying for unlimited then I would hate comcast and jump to Fios or something. But I don't download much so I'm on the line about this idea. I want at least 50-80 gigs if not then I'd be pretty pissed.

I have comcast and I thought I had unlimited but apparently that doesn't make a difference because I downloaded 20 gigs in 2 weeks and they nerfed my internet for a few days. I finally called up myself and asked why the hell my internet is terrible(couldn't even watch youtube) and they said it had "high usage" so I didn't go over(but I don't even have a limit) and they still went through with it. When the guy asked me if I was downloading anything I just said "no" and he helped me reset my modem and everything was fixed. I've been flying under the radar on how much stuff I download.