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The problem is selling "unlimited" anything. Every data provider's marketing department insist they have to offer "unlimited" data because all their competitors

by ryandvm 11y ago

The problem is selling "unlimited" anything. Every data provider's marketing department insist they have to offer "unlimited" data because all their competitors do it. Unfortunately it's not actually possible for any of them. How about the FTC do their fucking job and actually enforce these unlimited plans? Then all the carriers will stop with the shell game and sell bandwidth the only way it's feasible - metered. Can you imagine if your power company was offering "unlimited" electricity?

doki_pen 11y ago
The government fought hard to keep internet unlimited to encourage growth. Do you think that is no longer a noble goal?
- ryandvm 11y ago
  I have never thought that setting up false billing infinities that are easily exploitable was ever a good idea. People that think bandwidth is free are operating under a ludicrous interpretation of the facts. Ever increasing bandwidth requires constant capital expenditure to upgrade the infrastructure. The bandwidth fairies do not show up at night to sprinkle pixie dust on your cable modem. If someone thinks it does not, I invite them to dust off their 56K modem and connect to the infrastructure of yesteryear. Now, I am all for cheap internet and requiring unbundled access and creating an environment that encourages competition. But to advocate "unlimited" plans that then require all kinds of loopholes for dealing with people actually taking advantage of the impossible, well, that's just wasting everyone's time and money.
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
The electricity metaphor doesn't work. Electricity is a consumable, it costs money to generate and that value is destroyed when you use it. Data is not a consumable because it does not cost anything to created a copy - in fact you might argue that using data creates value. The only similarly between commercial electrical and data networks is that both make you pay for the size of the wire that goes to your house. Electrical networks also make you pay per unit energy that moves through that wire, in order to fund the generation of it. But such a charge doesn't make sense for a data network, because your ISP doesn't supply the data, only the wire.

by ryandvm 11y ago

doki_pen 11y ago

The government fought hard to keep internet unlimited to encourage growth. Do you think that is no longer a noble goal?

ryandvm 11y ago
I have never thought that setting up false billing infinities that are easily exploitable was ever a good idea. People that think bandwidth is free are operating under a ludicrous interpretation of the facts. Ever increasing bandwidth requires constant capital expenditure to upgrade the infrastructure. The bandwidth fairies do not show up at night to sprinkle pixie dust on your cable modem. If someone thinks it does not, I invite them to dust off their 56K modem and connect to the infrastructure of yesteryear. Now, I am all for cheap internet and requiring unbundled access and creating an environment that encourages competition. But to advocate "unlimited" plans that then require all kinds of loopholes for dealing with people actually taking advantage of the impossible, well, that's just wasting everyone's time and money.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago

The electricity metaphor doesn't work. Electricity is a consumable, it costs money to generate and that value is destroyed when you use it. Data is not a consumable because it does not cost anything to created a copy - in fact you might argue that using data creates value. The only similarly between commercial electrical and data networks is that both make you pay for the size of the wire that goes to your house. Electrical networks also make you pay per unit energy that moves through that wire, in order to fund the generation of it. But such a charge doesn't make sense for a data network, because your ISP doesn't supply the data, only the wire.