Why Cable ISP Capping is the New DRM, and Suck

[ashaw]

oh get over it, everywhere else in the world other than the US has caps, and much more suvere than the ones you are talking about, bileve it or not traffic costs money, so does the infrastructure, if everyone uses all their bandwidth the price for it to be economically feasable for these companys to charge 10 times what they are charging, just get a quote from any company for a dedicated T3 line which is what you seem to expect the cable providers give to every client.

 

[p05esto]

DOWN WITH TIME WARNER. CALL AND EMAIL THEM CONSTANTLY!!!

 

[mustwarnothers]

[citation][nom]ashaw[/nom]oh get over it, everywhere else in the world other than the US has caps, and much more suvere than the ones you are talking about, bileve it or not traffic costs money, so does the infrastructure, if everyone uses all their bandwidth the price for it to be economically feasable for these companys to charge 10 times what they are charging, just get a quote from any company for a dedicated T3 line which is what you seem to expect the cable providers give to every client.[/citation]

It's hip to play devils advocate. Schmuck.

 

[Guest]

Under the assumption that users get to pick their own ISP, I believe this bandwidth cap is completely fair. 5GB or 100GB cap might seem like a lot to you and I, but I believe that we are the ones using the most bandwidth. Why should all the users that don't traffic as much information as me pay the same amount? In comparison, when I go to the gas station, it doesn't matter if I get a fast pump or a slow pump, I pay for how much gas I've used. (I realize this isn't the same situation, I'm just throwing out a comparison!) If only 1% of those on the internet are downloading over 100GB a month, why should those who use under 100GB, 50GB, 5GB, etc be charged for what that person downloads.
Also, for those who say that this is "curbing innovation." What are you using to support this claim? Perhaps the price users pay per GB of info will decease. If the max amount of information you can download isn't going up, this doesn't imply that innovation is stopping. If a 2GB stick of RAM becomes more energy efficient, instead of sending more information, there is still innovation.

For those of you interested in an alternative viewpoint to "net neutrality must be preserved," I would encourage you to visit blogmaverick.com. It is written by billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who has a company in the cable TV business (I think it's called HDnet). I believe Mark is extremely intelligent and has some great points to make on net neutrality and the internet. It can be difficult to find a good opposer to main stream thoughts on the web. Again, if you're interested, check out his blog.
-Not a cable company employee, not Mark Cuban. Just a midwest college student that's looking for the CORRECt answer - not simply the one that feels right.

 

[Guest]

Get with the times people, lucky americans, until now youve never heard of capping, Australia, amongst others, have had hard & soft (shaping the connection to 64kbit) for years now. The big one (BigPond) most plans hardcap you to 10GB with a dollar every GB after.. others TPG Internode, westnet etc shape you to 64kbit(dialup.) after you hit thier limits, Westnet has the limits onpeak/offpeak and internode has a flat 25GB cap.. which i hit about half way through every month..

Its standard practice here. all the ISPs do it.. but TPG has one plan, but its truely unlimited. 30MBit /2mbit unlimited downloading... but at a pricey $200+ / month

So yea.. Capping sucks.. but welcome to the rest of the world.

 

[g-thor]

Tuan, a brilliant article, and your documentation and support is exemplary. This kind of online journalism shows exactly what can be done these days to set the record straight. If you could get this published on other sites, ones where the general public go, it would do wonders for people's awareness.

As I am in Canada, I can't really sign the petition you mention. We have our own row to hoe here, but I know without question that our "service providers" (pronounced "controllers") here are eagerly watching what will happen with TWC. If the public outrage is small, they will quickly gouge in the giant's footsteps. If the outrage and backlash is strong and harsh, they will cringe - at least for a while.

 

[Guest]

Hi, someone suggested it. The internet is for the people and by the people. Maybe the future holds the people create their own infrastructure of a wifi mesh, ad hoc VPN of regular people. With enough people on it, leaving the internet of today, we may be able to have internet companies like google want to join. This probably calls for a new protocol or update to one. Network engineers got any ideas?

 

[sriojas]

[citation][nom]tiredwolf[/nom]The governemnt should not step in, the government has been stepping in and managing businesses a little too much lately, you are talking about giving them more power. Anything that the government runs gets screwed up. On the other hand, it's the consumer that needs to regulate this. For the most part people do have another option and if it really comes down to it, use dial up for a while. If my cable company starts to do this then I WILL switch to a company that doesn't, if they all do this, I will switch to dial up.[/citation]

Sounds like a good business opportunity. A smart guy with some capital could start his own company in the areas where Cable and Phone companies are capping bandwidth and offer an unlimited data plan at $50-70.

 

[lamorpa]

The amount that I download should be my choice, just like music should be free because I want it to be free. Right? Right??

 

[Guest]

Bandwidth throttling or "Capping" will seep its way into all ISP providers whether it be satellite or cable. There are two ways this will end and it will. One, the government steps in (FCC) and investigates whether they feel that capping is legal, etc. Two, companies like Netflix, Apple, Gaming companies (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft), etc. that rely heavily on downloadable content will step in via lobbying or by legal injunctions and end capping. Either way at some point bandwidth throttling will end as there are too many companies with enough money to be made for bandwidth throttling to continue. One day traditional cable television as we know it will no longer exist; it is just a matter of how and when we get there. Capitalism if the government lets it, will reign.

 

[lamorpa]

What is the debate here? Bandwidth is capped now, by your download rate multiplied by your connection time (all the time for most). How can anyone imagine that it is not a cost based on use? I demand that my car run all week on $20 worth of gas, independant of whether my commute is 5 miles or 250 miles. I demand it! See how far that gets.

 

[trucmuche4]

In regards to each one of your numbered arguments:

1. Agreed.
2. Agreed.
3. Agreed.

4.
Quote :Current infrastructure does not allow for the current number of web users, let alone an increasing number, to continue exchanging more data, faster, forever.


Did you not read my link to TWC's earnings report where in 2008, it received 10-percent more subscribers but cost of infrastructure did not go up?

Please see: http://blog.wired.com/business/200 [...] eviouspost

5.
Quote :Now instead of throwing sophisms at me, why don't you answer the following questions : How will ISPs, or, who will, pay for those required infrastructure improvements if ISPs do not charge those who use it? How is charging proportionally to the amount of data downloaded unfair? Why should speed be the only criterion for an internet plan?


OK. I will answer. It is paying for itself already. TWC is protecting its TV programming business. Its new cap plans don't have anything to do with network infrastructure costs. The infrastructure costs are already established with headroom to grow.

Wonder why TWC's capped plans are many times higher than that of AT&T's proposed prices? Because TWC has a much larger vested interest in TV networks.

Thank you for supporting the arguments you brought forward with educative links, it makes it a lot easier to understand where you're coming from and it has a lot more argumentative value.

I have read every single link you quoted. I found a very interesting, and simple, definition of net neutrality on savetheinternet.com (the link you provided :

Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

Although the article you provided pretty much explains how TWC is trying to squeeze more profits out of their consumers it does not convince me that imposing a cap limit goes against net neutrality, especially as previously defined. Even if their cost did go down last years and revenue increased, this is only evidence that their infrastructure was adequate last year, but not necessarily for the future. Also, we are talking about only one company here.

The reasoning you used previously where you are saying that a lower cap limit forces you to make a choice regarding your internet usage only really applies in a situation where you cannot choose your ISP and are stuck with TWC. Even though I agree with your idea that TWC is trying to protect their investment in other areas by imposing low caps, unless TWC is in a monopolistic situation, I think their strategy is retarded and doomed to fail as any customer with half a brain will switch to other ISPs who have more advantageous plans available.

Since, as far as I know, US customer have a choice between ISP, TWC imposing caps therefore does not affect net neutrality. A better example of an ISP affecting net neutrality would be the situation where Comcast was throttling certain kinds of traffic.

 

[noahjwhite]

5GB might seem like a lot but it's not. That's only a few videos. Gamers are going to get screwed. Age of Conan has a 32+GB file that you have to download just to play the game. The only positive I can see coming out of a cap is "maybe" blockbuster will NOT go belly up after all.

 

[Guest]

Lol welcome to NZ. A "normal" cap in NZ is 10GB/month.....my household chews through 80GB per month and that's considered obscene.

To top it all off, it still costs about US$40/month.

Then there's the availability of media...we can't watch the latest shows legally even if we want to! Shows come out here months later than the USA, a long time after the hype has gone and your online buddies have told you all about what happens.

/internet envy

 

[vir_cotto]

I'm glad I'm not with TWC, those caps are ridiculous. I would drop their service immediately if I was with them. I hope everyone that is with TWC will be able to find a better alternative.

 

[Guest]

The bottom line is that there is a finite amount of bandwidth available. With the ever increasing amounts of movie streaming, music downloads, online gaming, P2P network sharing, etc., our network infrastructure will crash and burn if something isn't done to mitigate the loads on these networks.

Setting caps on bandwidth usage seems like a reasonable, short term solution to this problem.

Long term, this country needs to make more of an effort to upgrade the network infrastructure to fiber optics.

If I remember correctly, our government actually tried this not too long ago. They gave the cable industry $200 billion to create a nationwide fiber optic network with a throughput of 40+ Mbps. Unfortunately, by the time the cable industry lobbyists were done, the term "fiber optic" in the legislation was changed to "broadband". As a result, virtually nothing was done to advance our network infrastructure. The cable companies still took the $200 billion though.

Now THAT is something worth bitching about!

 

[hannibal]

Well, this means that there really is room for competition in network sector! If one company puts too high prize, there eventually will be a company that moves to that space.

Other thing that this tells about is that now more and more people has started to use internet as their only source of TV material. So now those companies are troubled because of increasing total bandwide usage, so they chose the use of caps.

I can not be sure, that those caps are the "future" of internet. If they are, it change the picture of internet a guite a lot. This situation allso tells that there are some areas where there seems to be a monopoly in this segment. So there are legal reasons to provide some more competition inthose areas, or the untitrust charges will the the only weapon against these companies.

 

[Guest]

Seriously not meaning to cause offense, but I leave how this article is so obviously American. Welcome to what Australia has had since the dawn of the internet. We have always had download caps and traffic shaping and yet we still live (I won't get into ridiculous game prices here either). Trust me, if it hits you guys you will suffer withdrawal symptoms but probably get over it.

 

[tomasf]

so what about people like graphic designers and photographers who are constantly sending HUGE amounts of date aver the web? the are going to screw everyone!!

 

[Guest]

Caps are the norm over here in OZ.... It sux, but it makes ISPs more money by charging u more for more data...

My father is on a 200MB (yes Mega Byte) cap per month!!! HAHAHHAHHAHAH

 

[Guest]

Is there any possible way for us to somehow make them waste their money on running servers that aren't serving? Like, umteen million of us comcast users reaching the download cap, leaving most of their servers idling, wasting electricity?

 

[Guest]

Great article.. down with caps.. it doesn't make any sense, the internet is becoming a bigger part of everyones lives and here we are going backwards.. thank you for sharing the link to the petition.

 

[compulsionnra]

This article is very true. Even if it's biased.

 

[brettski74]

[citation][nom]dekkar[/nom]Caps are the norm over here in OZ.... It sux, but it makes ISPs more money by charging u more for more data...My father is on a 200MB (yes Mega Byte) cap per month!!! HAHAHHAHHAHAH[/citation]

A large part of the reason for those low caps in Australia and NZ is because of the volume charging that the Australian ISPs get hit with from their larger network partners in the US, Europe and Asia, who have enough leverage to saddle virtually all of the costs of the links into their networks and the traffic that they generate on the Australian consumers. In effect, it's larger US based internet backbone operators who have driven caps on the Australian consumer for virtually as long as internet access has become commonly available.

 

[Guest]

Duh, ever wonder why TW and friends upload speeds are 1/10th the download speeds? It isn't the hardware, check the DOCIS specs.