4 ms·

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 d

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
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Or anyone who uses a VPN for work. ...
OGWhales 7y ago
Well that's terrible... We should only have to pay for the bandwidth, not get penalized when we decide to use the bandwidth we pay for.
- Spivak 7y ago
  Look, paying for 'speed' and data usage isn't that weird. Your speed tier determines how much of the shared bandwidth you're allowed to consume at any given moment. Your data tier determines how much total data you're allowed to transfer. These numbers become related at the edges but in the middle can be picked somewhat independently. Very few people need 24/7 full-tilt internet so it makes sense to buy more point-in-time bandwidth while keeping your data tier low.

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

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
- scarface74 7y ago
  Or anyone who uses a VPN for work. ...

OGWhales 7y ago

Well that's terrible... We should only have to pay for the bandwidth, not get penalized when we decide to use the bandwidth we pay for.

Spivak 7y ago
Look, paying for 'speed' and data usage isn't that weird. Your speed tier determines how much of the shared bandwidth you're allowed to consume at any given moment. Your data tier determines how much total data you're allowed to transfer. These numbers become related at the edges but in the middle can be picked somewhat independently. Very few people need 24/7 full-tilt internet so it makes sense to buy more point-in-time bandwidth while keeping your data tier low.