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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 th

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).
  - shmerl 8y ago
    And most ISPs were sitting doing nothing, until Google Fiber introduced gigabit to the masses. Major execs said on record that "no one needs Gigabit", only to deploy it not long after, because they got scared of GF. Too bad GF sizzled out, but it had a good positive effect to disrupt slumbering monopolists.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      That’s a complete fever dream. FiOS and U-verse fiber launched in 2005 and 2006. In 2002 Comcast’s top speed tier was 3 mbps. In 2009, it was 20, a 7x increase in 7 years. Google Fiber launched in 2010. From 2009 to 2016, Comcast went from 20 to 150, about the same factor of increase as before Google Fiber. Verizon and Comcast announced gigabit upgrades ... after Google Fiber stopped expansion in 2016. Yeah, Verizon jumped to gigabit to match Google’s marketing. It was a non-event. (After about 100 mbps the shittiness of the modern web stack makes further upgrades pointless unless you’re a huge downloader. I’ve got gigabit FiOS load-balanced with 2-gigabit Comcast fiber at my house. I literally cannot tell the difference from the 150 mbps FiOS I had before, except in speed tests.) Google Fiber really has nothing to do with these increases. That’s total make believe. There is an upgrade treadmill for DOCSIS that the industry follows, just like for CPU fabrication. And like improvements in fabrication technology, staying on the treadmill requires massive continual investment (faster versions of DOCSIS only work if you keep building fiber closer to the house and decreasing the amount of coax and the degree of fan-out). ISPs were spending that money before Google Fiber, and continue to spend that money now Google Fiber is on life support.
      - shmerl 8y ago
        > That’s total make believe. You sound like McAdam. First, he conceitedly claimed that no one needs or will need gigabit so customers can get lost expecting it. And then he "magically" changed his tune. Which is totally the indirect effect of Google Fiber, which affected Comcast and AT&T which affected Verizon. McAdam had to swallow his conceit, shut up and deploy gigabit. All this "no one needs" bunk falls apart very quickly even at the slightest sight of looming competition. Imagine what could have been if there was real one around.

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).
- shmerl 8y ago
  And most ISPs were sitting doing nothing, until Google Fiber introduced gigabit to the masses. Major execs said on record that "no one needs Gigabit", only to deploy it not long after, because they got scared of GF. Too bad GF sizzled out, but it had a good positive effect to disrupt slumbering monopolists.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    That’s a complete fever dream. FiOS and U-verse fiber launched in 2005 and 2006. In 2002 Comcast’s top speed tier was 3 mbps. In 2009, it was 20, a 7x increase in 7 years. Google Fiber launched in 2010. From 2009 to 2016, Comcast went from 20 to 150, about the same factor of increase as before Google Fiber. Verizon and Comcast announced gigabit upgrades ... after Google Fiber stopped expansion in 2016. Yeah, Verizon jumped to gigabit to match Google’s marketing. It was a non-event. (After about 100 mbps the shittiness of the modern web stack makes further upgrades pointless unless you’re a huge downloader. I’ve got gigabit FiOS load-balanced with 2-gigabit Comcast fiber at my house. I literally cannot tell the difference from the 150 mbps FiOS I had before, except in speed tests.) Google Fiber really has nothing to do with these increases. That’s total make believe. There is an upgrade treadmill for DOCSIS that the industry follows, just like for CPU fabrication. And like improvements in fabrication technology, staying on the treadmill requires massive continual investment (faster versions of DOCSIS only work if you keep building fiber closer to the house and decreasing the amount of coax and the degree of fan-out). ISPs were spending that money before Google Fiber, and continue to spend that money now Google Fiber is on life support.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      > That’s total make believe. You sound like McAdam. First, he conceitedly claimed that no one needs or will need gigabit so customers can get lost expecting it. And then he "magically" changed his tune. Which is totally the indirect effect of Google Fiber, which affected Comcast and AT&T which affected Verizon. McAdam had to swallow his conceit, shut up and deploy gigabit. All this "no one needs" bunk falls apart very quickly even at the slightest sight of looming competition. Imagine what could have been if there was real one around.