Topic: Comcast is the devil - an article on the data cap.

[Quemaqua]

http://nerdvice.com/2011/07/13/the-day-comcasts-data-cap-policy-killed-my-internet-for-1-year/

What do you guys think?

I would suspect that very few people are as excessive as this guy, and for me personally his internet usage and absolute dependence upon cloud storage is just fucking ridiculous. But he still has every right to use it that way if he's a paying customer, and I'm totally with him on the rest of his arguments.

[ren]

Did I read that correctly, did he actually try to upload terabytes of RAW images? If so he had to have seen that coming.

Regardless of that, what he said generally makes sense to me. A few years ago my opinion on the matter was that a reasonable data cap was fine and the option to pay more for higher use was reasonable. But now that we're in a situation where local monopolies are in direct competition over services that can only be provided through their pipes, they're in a ridiculous position to act in a way that could reduce innovation for years to come.

Also, I live in a house which has at least 5 people living it, oftentimes more. We're lucky enough to live in a part of the country where no caps on internet is a possibility because I bet we collectively download hundreds of gigs no problem.

[scottws]

I agree and disagree with you Que.  The idea of updating tons of RAW image and lossless content to cloud storage... well that is like you said, fucking ridiculous.  That said, Comcast's terms of service regarding their 250 GB monthly cap have been known for quite some time and therefore she has a right to use his service as a paying customer in line with the terms laid out in the terms of service.  Clearly, she was violating that.

Don't get me wrong, Comcast is evil.  They are, by far, the most evil of the cable companies/telecoms and have been doing restrictive and anti-competitive stuff for a long time.  I am so glad I have lived in areas where I don't have to deal with them or at least have other legitimate choices.  But these bandwidth caps are coming.  They are already at AT&T U-Verse here in Florida.  The cap is 250 GB also, but I like how they do it better:  if you go over the cap, they just charge you $10 per 50 GB over.  That is a lot better than what Comcast is doing.

The cable companies and telecoms are money grubbing bastards.  They say that infrastructure upgrades are expensive, and they are.  Yet they double gouge by trying to charge upstream providers like L-3 communications more while also charging customers more.  Also, just as people are finally getting rid of cable TV service due to the price gouging and going with on-demand options like combinations of Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon, the cable companies are starting with these bandwidth caps or tiered service.  In essense they are doing it not because it is going to require them to upgrade their infrastructure, it is because they are worried about losing subscribers.  By making streaming-only less attractive by introducing higher costs on the ISP end for the bandwidth, they keep people from fully going to those services.

It's pretty shitty, but it is what it is.

[idolminds]

Comcast needs to be more up front about the cap. They say shit like "unlimited" when its not and thats not right. People shouldn't be surprised there is a cap they can hit, they should be well aware of it ahead of time and should be able to check how much is remaining each month.

Its kind of hard to feel sorry for this dude in particular. "Oh, I was just uploading thousands of RAW images and my entire music collection that I keep in triplicate with two lossless formats."

[Quemaqua]

Right. I think this guy is kind of pathetic, but his point seems reasonable. Like you said Scott, it is what it is... but should it be? I don't really think so.

[scottws]

The author is a chick.  I am the only one that picked that up?  There is a picture of her at the end.

Edit: Nevermind, I see it was a repost originally written by some guy named Andre.

[Quemaqua]

You missed the line directly above that where she says she just found it on some other site and posted it there. Original author was a guy.

[idolminds]

Also I agree broadband should be a human right, so then I can bitch and finally get some.

[Cobra951]

The only way this can be fixed is with legislation.  There are 2 fronts.  One is competition, as in: there is none.  Monopolies are against the law, with the exception of regulated natural ones (like water works).  Why do telecoms even get the opportunity to monopolize local markets?  The other is the necessity of broadband in the civilized world.  I agree that it's an essential utility that should never get cut off as long as the customer is paying for it.  I also agree that this front should cover the elimination of caps entirely.

So far, I've been lucky (like Scott, who lived here until recently) to have Roadrunner, which has been a near-flawless service for years.  I know they tried caps in limited markets, but quickly withdrew them because of backlash.  But who knows what they'll do in the future, particularly if customer-deaf outfits like Comcast are allowed to continue with their draconian policies.

[scottws]

Until I moved I had 20 down/5 up uncapped glory from Cincinnati Bell Fiber Optic.  I have 10 down now, but as I said it is capped.

[Cobra951]

RR standard tier went to 20 down, 1 up not long ago.  Real world, I get over 1 MB/s routinely now on downloads.  No cap (yet).

[shock]

I didn't even know that these hard caps had some into place.  Eek.

[scottws]

The only way I see this going away is if there is increased competition.  There really isn't ever going to be significant choice in any given area between cable and telecom providers.  At most you are going to get one or two of each.  This is because wired infrastructure is a major capital investment and the barriers to entry are simply too high.  Upstarts could try leasing lines, but the oligopoly would figure out a way to price them out or somehow put restrictions in place that cause it to not make economic or practical sense to the upstarts, consumers, or both.

The only way is wireless technologies.  It's getting there with 4G.  There are many problems here though.  First of all, it's not very reliable.  Even when the connection itself is relatively reliable, the actual throughput isn't.  Latency is pretty high.  Also, data caps in the wireless sector started before the landline caps and those are usually as low as 5 GB/mo.  But it is possible that the wireless providers will eventually build up their infrastructure so that capacity isn't such a problem and then more and more people might consider them for a home internet connection instead of a wired provider.  As the economics start working out, they might eventually be real competitors to the Comcasts of the world.  Trouble is, consolidation in the wireless industry is happening even faster than in the cable/telecom industry.

Hopefully these caps go away.  They were tried about 10 years ago in some markets and business and consumers laughed them right the hell out of the market.  But we are such slaves to technology nowadays that it's like we can't live without broadband and just have to such down whatever restrictions they decide to give us.

And yeah, legislation or regulation is the only real power that We The People have.  But everyone knows We The People doesn't have any power in this country anymore.  It's They The Corporation now and that means that any legislation or regulation would just support the practices rather than eliminate or restrict them.