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Selling per GB is an absolutely horrible idea because that’s not how networks work. ISPs have conjured this concept from nowhere solely as a way to get people t

by orev 8y ago

Selling per GB is an absolutely horrible idea because that’s not how networks work. ISPs have conjured this concept from nowhere solely as a way to get people to pay more money. Bandwidth is data transfer over time, and there is no “bucket of data” that gets depleted when you transfer data. It’s not gas or water or something that you drain out the more you use. Time is divided into time slots and that time is going to pass whether you put something in the packet or not. If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. But ISPs want to be able to advertise fast speeds that make them look impressive, though they don’t want to you actually be able to use it because then they have to upgrade their pipes. So they play these tricks where they can claim you have fast speeds but then this magical bucket of data gets depleted every time you use it.

icebraining 8y ago
While I'm sure ISP execs are all mustache-twirling villains, what they're doing is not absurd, it's essentially the same as selling a burstable connection with a certain average bandwidth (the cap divided by one month gives a data transfer over time). And the reality is that, as a customer who loads a 5MB site and then spends 2-3m reading it, I much prefer this model than if they sold me a smaller fixed data transfer over time. That networks don't work like this is rather irrelevant, because it's a shared pipe. If they sold be a data transfer over time (say, guaranteed 256kps), that would be wasteful, because I couldn't take advantage of the higher speeds when other customers weren't using it too. A well-managed burstable connection is a much more efficient use of the resource.
raverbashing 8y ago
> that’s not how networks work Correct. I agree with most of your post. > If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. Yes. And you don't get that by having everybody with their foot down on the download pedal all the time. Speed oversubscription is a thing, because a lot of the time people are using a trickle down of data, in some other periods they're using more. NN is important and a byte from Netflix shouldn't be treated differently from a byte from some other site. But I think having people differentiated by the amount of data they use per month (or at least having a big tier limit) could be something ""ok"".

by orev 8y ago

icebraining 8y ago

While I'm sure ISP execs are all mustache-twirling villains, what they're doing is not absurd, it's essentially the same as selling a burstable connection with a certain average bandwidth (the cap divided by one month gives a data transfer over time). And the reality is that, as a customer who loads a 5MB site and then spends 2-3m reading it, I much prefer this model than if they sold me a smaller fixed data transfer over time. That networks don't work like this is rather irrelevant, because it's a shared pipe. If they sold be a data transfer over time (say, guaranteed 256kps), that would be wasteful, because I couldn't take advantage of the higher speeds when other customers weren't using it too. A well-managed burstable connection is a much more efficient use of the resource.

raverbashing 8y ago

> that’s not how networks work Correct. I agree with most of your post. > If that time slot was empty, it is wasted and you can never get it back. So you really want to be able to use all time slots as much as you can. Yes. And you don't get that by having everybody with their foot down on the download pedal all the time. Speed oversubscription is a thing, because a lot of the time people are using a trickle down of data, in some other periods they're using more. NN is important and a byte from Netflix shouldn't be treated differently from a byte from some other site. But I think having people differentiated by the amount of data they use per month (or at least having a big tier limit) could be something ""ok"".