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But aside that, I think that beyond the "we can charge you for data because you can", the per-data-transferred costs come from the overprovisioning ISPs do. The

But aside that, I think that beyond the "we can charge you for data because you can", the per-data-transferred costs come from the overprovisioning ISPs do. The fraction of the advertised to actually supported bandwidth per user they can get away with is dependent on average amount of traffic users generate. How do data caps help with that though? People are still going to use most of their internet during peek hours, because...well, those are the times people use the internet the most, by definition. It's like trying to combat rush hour traffic problems by limiting the number of times people can use a highway. People are still going to use it during rush hour, they just are going to avoid using the highway during non-rush hour periods, which accomplishes nothing.

snak 7y ago
Traffic in a highway during rush hours, can't imagine a better analogy. Nailed that one.
ubercow13 7y ago
Any evidence that it doesn’t work? In the UK most ISPs will instead perform traffic shaping where they will slow down your connection during peak times after a certain small amount of data transfer. This still seems to be disliked by consumers just the same.
- mattnewton 7y ago
  If we had a competitive market in either place, it would be interesting to see what consumers choose. I think I would prefer the traffic shaped example, since the current tiering situation appears to have _both_ limits in the fine print with Comcast.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Yes. Everyone still needs to go to work at the same time so the resources are still going to be used at the same time. It's charging extra for standard expected usage that the ISPs have known exists for years. If this were really an issue there wouldn't be so much dark fiber in the US hooked into copper cable local loops.
paranoidrobot 7y ago
They help demand management because if they're set low enough, people can't use the highway 5 times a day, they have to limit their usage to just once a day, or maybe a few times a week. In Australia the bandwidth caps used to be specifically set up with a different peak and off-peak cap to help with this even more.

snak 7y ago

Traffic in a highway during rush hours, can't imagine a better analogy. Nailed that one.

ubercow13 7y ago

Any evidence that it doesn’t work? In the UK most ISPs will instead perform traffic shaping where they will slow down your connection during peak times after a certain small amount of data transfer. This still seems to be disliked by consumers just the same.

mattnewton 7y ago
If we had a competitive market in either place, it would be interesting to see what consumers choose. I think I would prefer the traffic shaped example, since the current tiering situation appears to have _both_ limits in the fine print with Comcast.
cannonedhamster 7y ago
Yes. Everyone still needs to go to work at the same time so the resources are still going to be used at the same time. It's charging extra for standard expected usage that the ISPs have known exists for years. If this were really an issue there wouldn't be so much dark fiber in the US hooked into copper cable local loops.

paranoidrobot 7y ago

They help demand management because if they're set low enough, people can't use the highway 5 times a day, they have to limit their usage to just once a day, or maybe a few times a week. In Australia the bandwidth caps used to be specifically set up with a different peak and off-peak cap to help with this even more.