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It doesn't really cost money to move data around. The biggest cost by far is building the infrastructure. If the capacity is available, the cost of using it is

It doesn't really cost money to move data around. The biggest cost by far is building the infrastructure. If the capacity is available, the cost of using it is minimal.

munk-a 8y ago
I'd assume ISPs are taking infrastructure into their cost calculations, even in a case where the initial build out was government subsidized... things break, there are ongoing costs. And my totally uninformed understanding is that the ongoing maintenance costs, and the costs of expanded service are both pretty minimal.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Both are incorrect. Almost no ISP infrastructure is “government subsidized.” Almost all the subsidies are urban ISPs subsidizing rural ones. There was a tiny bit of actual government subsidy under Obama as part of the post-recession stimulus. And ongoing maintenance and support costs are very high. Even if you don’t trust Verizon’s SEC disclosures (showing 5% or less in operating profit for wireline) look at the financial statements for something like Chattanooga’s EBP. The vast majority of revenue goes to ongoing costs, before you even get to paying down the initial build out.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    Given severe lack of competition among ISPs in US, I don't buy the bogus argument that current prices are fair. Simple market logic suggests, that they overcharge, because they can. Therefore they do have more than enough money for their upgrades. And on top of that, most simply prefer to pocket them instead of investing into the network, with "no one needs it" excuse. Something they would never have done with healthy competition.
Ma8ee 8y ago
It does cost money to move data around, even if it is an upfront cost when you build the infrastructure. When your users move enough data that you are getting close to the capacity of your infrastructure you need to invest more money to extend your infrastructure. Or to express it slightly differently: if there weren’t any data to move you wouldn’t have to build any infrastructure and you wouldn’t have any costs. If you want to move data you have to build the infrastructure which cost money, which means that it costs money to move data.
jdietrich 8y ago
Infrastructure has finite capacity, especially on cellular networks. You need some way of managing network utilisation fairly, otherwise everyone's experience will be severely degraded. To my mind, it seems obviously unfair to force light users to cross-subsidise heavy users.
- shmerl 8y ago
  The problem is simultaneous usage, not "heavy" usage as in consuming a lot of data each month. If the network can't handle increased simultaneous usage, no amount of data caps will fix that. The only thing that can be viewed as network management is bandwidth limiting based on the current network load. I.e. your realtime bandwidth limit. Limiting monthly data has nothing to do with network management IMHO and is a simply a method to fleece users and push them to pay more for less capped plans.
  - jules 8y ago
    Simultaneous usage and heavy usage is the same thing in practice. Most people watch youtube videos at times of the day when everyone else is watching youtube too. Data caps make users consider whether or not to watch a video via their wireless connection, and hence reduce peak usage. Telecom companies could work around this by making it cheaper to use data in off hours, but that makes it complicated. Most electricity providers don't have that for consumers either, even though it's actually super expensive to temporarily shut down many forms of electricity generation (and they can't keep them running either, because that would fry the network).
    - shmerl 8y ago
      It's not the same though. The idea that data caps prevent simultaneous usage is a fake. It might affect it, but it can't prevent it. So it's not a solution, but simply a money grab.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    Limiting bandwidth for everyone just makes the experience worse for everyone. If someone downloads 1 GB over an hour or over a minute, it makes no difference to your network. The amortized load on your network is the same. This is why the trick is to deliver data asap to low usage users, and throttle high usage users to limit the amount of total load that they take up. This is of course a problem if they lie and advertise "unlimited" data.
rhino369 8y ago
That's no reason to ignore the cost of the infrastructure. And the costs aren't even fixed. You'll eventually have to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for the ever growing data transfers on ISPs. Not every single bit adds to the overall cost, but in general, more data sent means more spending. It's perfectly reasonable to charge for data. Though that doesn't mean Comcast isn't charging for anti-competitive reasons.
- shmerl 8y ago
  > You'll eventually have to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for the ever growing data transfers on ISPs. Given current obscene prices that IPSs are already charging, they have enough money to upgrade the infrastructure. They just need to line their pockets less, and actually spend money on upgrades.
  - trw-away 8y ago
    Internet infrastructure upgrades are very unevenly distributed, and you can find horror stories all over the US. But when I got online in the 1990s, a T1 (1.544 Mb/s symmetric) was extravagant and almost impossible to imagine for a home user. I now have 1 Gb/s symmetric at home. I doubt whether the entire uplink of my first ISP was 1 Gb/s. Many colleges' uplinks sure weren't. Somebody's out there making Internet infrastructure better some of the time.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      I have symmetric gigabit at home too. But that happened only thanks to namely Google Fiber making gigabit a norm in common perception.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Over the last 20 years, data speeds have increased much faster than say speeds (something we generally consider to be the subject of massive competitive investment and improvement).
    - 8y ago
yaleman 8y ago
"Driving to work is free, if you ignore the cost of the car, the fuel and the roads."

It doesn't really cost money to move data around. The biggest cost by far is building the infrastructure. If the capacity is available, the cost of using it is minimal.

munk-a 8y ago

I'd assume ISPs are taking infrastructure into their cost calculations, even in a case where the initial build out was government subsidized... things break, there are ongoing costs. And my totally uninformed understanding is that the ongoing maintenance costs, and the costs of expanded service are both pretty minimal.

rayiner 8y ago
Both are incorrect. Almost no ISP infrastructure is “government subsidized.” Almost all the subsidies are urban ISPs subsidizing rural ones. There was a tiny bit of actual government subsidy under Obama as part of the post-recession stimulus. And ongoing maintenance and support costs are very high. Even if you don’t trust Verizon’s SEC disclosures (showing 5% or less in operating profit for wireline) look at the financial statements for something like Chattanooga’s EBP. The vast majority of revenue goes to ongoing costs, before you even get to paying down the initial build out.
- shmerl 8y ago
  Given severe lack of competition among ISPs in US, I don't buy the bogus argument that current prices are fair. Simple market logic suggests, that they overcharge, because they can. Therefore they do have more than enough money for their upgrades. And on top of that, most simply prefer to pocket them instead of investing into the network, with "no one needs it" excuse. Something they would never have done with healthy competition.

Ma8ee 8y ago

It does cost money to move data around, even if it is an upfront cost when you build the infrastructure. When your users move enough data that you are getting close to the capacity of your infrastructure you need to invest more money to extend your infrastructure. Or to express it slightly differently: if there weren’t any data to move you wouldn’t have to build any infrastructure and you wouldn’t have any costs. If you want to move data you have to build the infrastructure which cost money, which means that it costs money to move data.

jdietrich 8y ago

Infrastructure has finite capacity, especially on cellular networks. You need some way of managing network utilisation fairly, otherwise everyone's experience will be severely degraded. To my mind, it seems obviously unfair to force light users to cross-subsidise heavy users.

shmerl 8y ago
The problem is simultaneous usage, not "heavy" usage as in consuming a lot of data each month. If the network can't handle increased simultaneous usage, no amount of data caps will fix that. The only thing that can be viewed as network management is bandwidth limiting based on the current network load. I.e. your realtime bandwidth limit. Limiting monthly data has nothing to do with network management IMHO and is a simply a method to fleece users and push them to pay more for less capped plans.
- jules 8y ago
  Simultaneous usage and heavy usage is the same thing in practice. Most people watch youtube videos at times of the day when everyone else is watching youtube too. Data caps make users consider whether or not to watch a video via their wireless connection, and hence reduce peak usage. Telecom companies could work around this by making it cheaper to use data in off hours, but that makes it complicated. Most electricity providers don't have that for consumers either, even though it's actually super expensive to temporarily shut down many forms of electricity generation (and they can't keep them running either, because that would fry the network).
  - shmerl 8y ago
    It's not the same though. The idea that data caps prevent simultaneous usage is a fake. It might affect it, but it can't prevent it. So it's not a solution, but simply a money grab.
- ummonk 8y ago
  Limiting bandwidth for everyone just makes the experience worse for everyone. If someone downloads 1 GB over an hour or over a minute, it makes no difference to your network. The amortized load on your network is the same. This is why the trick is to deliver data asap to low usage users, and throttle high usage users to limit the amount of total load that they take up. This is of course a problem if they lie and advertise "unlimited" data.

rhino369 8y ago

That's no reason to ignore the cost of the infrastructure. And the costs aren't even fixed. You'll eventually have to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for the ever growing data transfers on ISPs. Not every single bit adds to the overall cost, but in general, more data sent means more spending. It's perfectly reasonable to charge for data. Though that doesn't mean Comcast isn't charging for anti-competitive reasons.

shmerl 8y ago
> You'll eventually have to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for the ever growing data transfers on ISPs. Given current obscene prices that IPSs are already charging, they have enough money to upgrade the infrastructure. They just need to line their pockets less, and actually spend money on upgrades.
- trw-away 8y ago
  Internet infrastructure upgrades are very unevenly distributed, and you can find horror stories all over the US. But when I got online in the 1990s, a T1 (1.544 Mb/s symmetric) was extravagant and almost impossible to imagine for a home user. I now have 1 Gb/s symmetric at home. I doubt whether the entire uplink of my first ISP was 1 Gb/s. Many colleges' uplinks sure weren't. Somebody's out there making Internet infrastructure better some of the time.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    I have symmetric gigabit at home too. But that happened only thanks to namely Google Fiber making gigabit a norm in common perception.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Over the last 20 years, data speeds have increased much faster than say speeds (something we generally consider to be the subject of massive competitive investment and improvement).
  - 8y ago

yaleman 8y ago

"Driving to work is free, if you ignore the cost of the car, the fuel and the roads."