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>People who use more bandwidth should pay more, they say, especially since capacity isn’t unlimited. But don't people already pay more for higher bandwidth con

by curt15 7y ago

>People who use more bandwidth should pay more, they say, especially since capacity isn’t unlimited. But don't people already pay more for higher bandwidth connections?

lunias 7y ago
Higher transfer rate, but since most plans are "unlimited" they're talking about charging for the total size of data transferred (on top of charging you more if you want it to happen faster)
magashna 7y ago
Also capacity is only limited due to ISPs not spending the money we've already given them to update our infrastructure. Trash companies
- whatshisface 7y ago
  I still don't get why the government gave free money to companies to invest in their assets. Even in a universe where they spent in on what they were supposed to, the extra profit they would have made from it would have been free money. Can I have some free money from the government?
  - zanny 7y ago
    > I still don't get why the government gave free money to companies to invest in their assets. Because the sponsors of the bills and authors of the clauses used to work for the same ISPs and were functionally writing blank checks of taxpayer money to their old employers and present campaign donors. Its why the FCC is almost wholly staffed by board members or C level management of big telecom.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Also capacity is only limited due to ISPs not spending BILLIONS OF DOLLARS THE GOVERNMENT has already given them to update our infrastructure. Trash companies
cmiles74 7y ago
This is a key component of cable company advertising: they stress the _speed_ at which data is delivered to your home network and, somehow, leave out how much data they will allow to be delivered. Thus the situation in this article: they subscriber purchases a 4K television and chooses a higher bandwidth cable internet plan. They do not realize that they are only paying to use the same fixed amount of data up more quickly. I wonder if we'll eventually see companies like Netflix and Disney pressure cable companies to drop these bandwidth caps. In this article the subscriber cancels their Hulu account and turns down the Netflix video quality, directly costing Hulu money and devaluing their 4K television.
- jerf 7y ago
  I've noticed some combinations of mobile plans and high speeds from the towers are particularly bad. I've seen plans where you could drain your entire month's quota in under a minute of sustained use at the supposed maximum. I imagine that as the high speed becomes more popular the caps will go up, but as it's building out I've seen some silly things. Even full-speed 4G can theoretically drain a full gigabyte in under four minutes (quick Google shows companies promising up to 5MB/s in some cases), so it can theoretically drain a lot of people's full months in under an hour. Though I'm not sure if the network will actually let you do that continuously, if for no other reason than I'm sure they got tired of calls from people complaining about some app using up their full month's quote in five minutes when they didn't even know the app was running, etc.
- scarface74 7y ago
  This is a key component of cable company advertising: they stress the _speed_ at which data is delivered to your home network and, somehow, leave out how much data they will allow to be delivered. To be more precise, they stress download speed. Comcast’s 1Tb plan has upload speeds of 30Mbps
  - CamelCaseName 7y ago
    In fairness, few people really need high upload speeds, which is why most plans are as asymmetrical as they are. One exception may be content creators, who quickly become aware of this fact once they try uploading their first YouTube video. In any case, although Comcast (and others) may advertise / stress download speeds, that information is really easy to look up for anyone who is interested [0], and is probably shown somewhere along the checkout path. [0] https://i.imgur.com/Jg94Nv6.png https://i.imgur.com/Jg94Nv6.png

by curt15 7y ago

>People who use more bandwidth should pay more, they say, especially since capacity isn’t unlimited. But don't people already pay more for higher bandwidth connections?

lunias 7y ago

Higher transfer rate, but since most plans are "unlimited" they're talking about charging for the total size of data transferred (on top of charging you more if you want it to happen faster)

magashna 7y ago

Also capacity is only limited due to ISPs not spending the money we've already given them to update our infrastructure. Trash companies

whatshisface 7y ago
I still don't get why the government gave free money to companies to invest in their assets. Even in a universe where they spent in on what they were supposed to, the extra profit they would have made from it would have been free money. Can I have some free money from the government?
- zanny 7y ago
  > I still don't get why the government gave free money to companies to invest in their assets. Because the sponsors of the bills and authors of the clauses used to work for the same ISPs and were functionally writing blank checks of taxpayer money to their old employers and present campaign donors. Its why the FCC is almost wholly staffed by board members or C level management of big telecom.
blaser-waffle 7y ago
Also capacity is only limited due to ISPs not spending BILLIONS OF DOLLARS THE GOVERNMENT has already given them to update our infrastructure. Trash companies

cmiles74 7y ago

This is a key component of cable company advertising: they stress the _speed_ at which data is delivered to your home network and, somehow, leave out how much data they will allow to be delivered. Thus the situation in this article: they subscriber purchases a 4K television and chooses a higher bandwidth cable internet plan. They do not realize that they are only paying to use the same fixed amount of data up more quickly. I wonder if we'll eventually see companies like Netflix and Disney pressure cable companies to drop these bandwidth caps. In this article the subscriber cancels their Hulu account and turns down the Netflix video quality, directly costing Hulu money and devaluing their 4K television.

jerf 7y ago
I've noticed some combinations of mobile plans and high speeds from the towers are particularly bad. I've seen plans where you could drain your entire month's quota in under a minute of sustained use at the supposed maximum. I imagine that as the high speed becomes more popular the caps will go up, but as it's building out I've seen some silly things. Even full-speed 4G can theoretically drain a full gigabyte in under four minutes (quick Google shows companies promising up to 5MB/s in some cases), so it can theoretically drain a lot of people's full months in under an hour. Though I'm not sure if the network will actually let you do that continuously, if for no other reason than I'm sure they got tired of calls from people complaining about some app using up their full month's quote in five minutes when they didn't even know the app was running, etc.
scarface74 7y ago
This is a key component of cable company advertising: they stress the _speed_ at which data is delivered to your home network and, somehow, leave out how much data they will allow to be delivered. To be more precise, they stress download speed. Comcast’s 1Tb plan has upload speeds of 30Mbps
- CamelCaseName 7y ago
  In fairness, few people really need high upload speeds, which is why most plans are as asymmetrical as they are. One exception may be content creators, who quickly become aware of this fact once they try uploading their first YouTube video. In any case, although Comcast (and others) may advertise / stress download speeds, that information is really easy to look up for anyone who is interested [0], and is probably shown somewhere along the checkout path. [0] https://i.imgur.com/Jg94Nv6.png https://i.imgur.com/Jg94Nv6.png