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Mostly correct, essentially all new plans have transfer caps. I still have a vintage Verizon data plan that's bonafide unlimited. Data overage is gotcha-capital

Mostly correct, essentially all new plans have transfer caps. I still have a vintage Verizon data plan that's bonafide unlimited. Data overage is gotcha-capitalism robbery.

afiori 7y ago
What I never properly understood is whether these caps appear anywhere on your contracts, if they don't then net neutrality should[1] not be necessary and if they do then it should not apply. [0] I guess I am wrong in believing this should is respected
- crooked-v 7y ago
  Contracts with ISPs are whatever the ISP wants them to be at any time, because the US court system allows one-sided non-negotiable contracts that include "we can change this contract at any time" clauses. Also, if you want to sue over the changes in the contract... you can't, because the US court system allows those one-sided non-negotiable contracts to include "you can never sue us for anything and instead are required to go to arbitration with an arbitrator of our choosing" clauses.
  - gnicholas 7y ago
    The fundamental problem here isn't how contracts work in the US — it's that in many places there is effectively zero competition for wired broadband services. If there were meaningful competition, then consumers would have somewhere to turn. It doesn't matter what the contract says if you don't have any meaningful alternatives for service.
    - afiori 7y ago
      > It doesn't matter what the contract says if you don't have any meaningful alternatives for service. This is conditional on resources or on the possibility of a class action. In practice I agree that this condition is almost never satisfied.
      - crooked-v 7y ago
        Class actions are also impossible, because of those mandatory arbitration clauses.
  - afiori 7y ago
    But then the thing I am relatively unsure about the stance of net-neutrality proponents would be whether it is legal for Comcast to sell "shitty internet." That is something that always get throttled first, that blocks certain websites, or that prioritize promoted services. I mean a VPN could legally do that, and in the case of a ISP my personal idea of net-neutrality would be that a neutral service needs to be available and that non-neutral offerings needs to be clearly marketed as such. I honestly see this as a possible drive to competition, as ISP would be forced to disclose how shitty or not the service is.
chipotle_coyote 7y ago
Are you talking about a mobile phone data plan, or a hardwired ISP-ish data plan? I'm about 99% sure that the specific classification this fight was over only applied to the latter, not the former -- there was never any "neutrality" in this sense for mobile data.
- anonsivalley652 7y ago
  Both, to varying degrees. And of course carriers are going to tailor their cell gear to their benefit in ways unknowable to customers without enterprising investigators conducting some seriously-dedicated SDR packet capturing and N carrier x M handsets x P locations x Q time-of-day testing. 0. Even assuming lossless/infinite backhaul capacity, it gets messy when guessing about what's deployed in terms of packet prioritization of tower -> handset. 1. Once deployed and maintained, the marginal cost of data is much closer to zero than what customers are being overcharged. Even if it's going from a cell tower to cheap dark fiber or trenched in, it's still nearly the same amortized cost. Also, there is plenty of spectrum channel capacity.. the "bottleneck" is the backend of the towers or their backend upstream in the region. 2. Xfinity (optical, fixed-premises "cable") has a 1 TB limit for certain US states but not others, where they have unlimited data allowances. So it's not about infrastructure or data transit costs, it's about making money from relatively richer people. It would be a good requirement for internet-providing carriers to be required to publish their effective channel capacity oversubscription ratio (for upload & download) for each internet-connecting plan that is offered in each ZIP code.
  - yspeak 7y ago
    >. Once deployed and maintained, the marginal cost of data is much closer to zero than what customers are being overcharged. I think one of the primary tasks of proper pricing is to recover costs of deployment and maintenance, isn't it ? Deployment and maintenance aren't free you and can't ignore those costs. Providers must build those in both to recover past costs and to build a reserve for future deployment. It makes sense that those who need more bandwidth should pay more. This emcourages more bandwidth to be deployed. The more deployment the more supply. The more supply comes on line, the quicker prices go down (or depending on demand, the slower the price increase). This has been so clearly seen in gas prices, where price caps have never worked except to choke supplies and artificially pump up denand. Allow prices to float freely according to use, and prices go up if demand goes up. Higher prices encourage suppliers to bring more online, and/or discourage inefficient uses (gas guzzling vehicles) and prices go down. Price caps always distort markets. Net neutrality functions as a price cap that slows deployment of more bandwidth, increases inefficient use, leading to slow internet for all greatly impeding innovation

Mostly correct, essentially all new plans have transfer caps. I still have a vintage Verizon data plan that's bonafide unlimited. Data overage is gotcha-capitalism robbery.

afiori 7y ago

What I never properly understood is whether these caps appear anywhere on your contracts, if they don't then net neutrality should[1] not be necessary and if they do then it should not apply. [0] I guess I am wrong in believing this should is respected

crooked-v 7y ago
Contracts with ISPs are whatever the ISP wants them to be at any time, because the US court system allows one-sided non-negotiable contracts that include "we can change this contract at any time" clauses. Also, if you want to sue over the changes in the contract... you can't, because the US court system allows those one-sided non-negotiable contracts to include "you can never sue us for anything and instead are required to go to arbitration with an arbitrator of our choosing" clauses.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  The fundamental problem here isn't how contracts work in the US — it's that in many places there is effectively zero competition for wired broadband services. If there were meaningful competition, then consumers would have somewhere to turn. It doesn't matter what the contract says if you don't have any meaningful alternatives for service.
  - afiori 7y ago
    > It doesn't matter what the contract says if you don't have any meaningful alternatives for service. This is conditional on resources or on the possibility of a class action. In practice I agree that this condition is almost never satisfied.
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      Class actions are also impossible, because of those mandatory arbitration clauses.
- afiori 7y ago
  But then the thing I am relatively unsure about the stance of net-neutrality proponents would be whether it is legal for Comcast to sell "shitty internet." That is something that always get throttled first, that blocks certain websites, or that prioritize promoted services. I mean a VPN could legally do that, and in the case of a ISP my personal idea of net-neutrality would be that a neutral service needs to be available and that non-neutral offerings needs to be clearly marketed as such. I honestly see this as a possible drive to competition, as ISP would be forced to disclose how shitty or not the service is.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago

Are you talking about a mobile phone data plan, or a hardwired ISP-ish data plan? I'm about 99% sure that the specific classification this fight was over only applied to the latter, not the former -- there was never any "neutrality" in this sense for mobile data.

anonsivalley652 7y ago
Both, to varying degrees. And of course carriers are going to tailor their cell gear to their benefit in ways unknowable to customers without enterprising investigators conducting some seriously-dedicated SDR packet capturing and N carrier x M handsets x P locations x Q time-of-day testing. 0. Even assuming lossless/infinite backhaul capacity, it gets messy when guessing about what's deployed in terms of packet prioritization of tower -> handset. 1. Once deployed and maintained, the marginal cost of data is much closer to zero than what customers are being overcharged. Even if it's going from a cell tower to cheap dark fiber or trenched in, it's still nearly the same amortized cost. Also, there is plenty of spectrum channel capacity.. the "bottleneck" is the backend of the towers or their backend upstream in the region. 2. Xfinity (optical, fixed-premises "cable") has a 1 TB limit for certain US states but not others, where they have unlimited data allowances. So it's not about infrastructure or data transit costs, it's about making money from relatively richer people. It would be a good requirement for internet-providing carriers to be required to publish their effective channel capacity oversubscription ratio (for upload & download) for each internet-connecting plan that is offered in each ZIP code.
- yspeak 7y ago
  >. Once deployed and maintained, the marginal cost of data is much closer to zero than what customers are being overcharged. I think one of the primary tasks of proper pricing is to recover costs of deployment and maintenance, isn't it ? Deployment and maintenance aren't free you and can't ignore those costs. Providers must build those in both to recover past costs and to build a reserve for future deployment. It makes sense that those who need more bandwidth should pay more. This emcourages more bandwidth to be deployed. The more deployment the more supply. The more supply comes on line, the quicker prices go down (or depending on demand, the slower the price increase). This has been so clearly seen in gas prices, where price caps have never worked except to choke supplies and artificially pump up denand. Allow prices to float freely according to use, and prices go up if demand goes up. Higher prices encourage suppliers to bring more online, and/or discourage inefficient uses (gas guzzling vehicles) and prices go down. Price caps always distort markets. Net neutrality functions as a price cap that slows deployment of more bandwidth, increases inefficient use, leading to slow internet for all greatly impeding innovation