Streaming Is on a Collision Course with ISP Data Caps

20 years of internet usage, never had data caps, always fast and reliable internet cheaply. Nice to live in the ivory tower that is Finland.
 
Depends on where you live I think.

In Ontario Canada you can get 1.5Gbps down and 1 Gbps up from bell as their best fibre offer.

For Cable internet best you get is 1 Gbps and 30mbps up which is similar to comcast in the US. Limitation is Docsis.

However i've not payed full internet prices in years because I keep getting discounts on my packages.

i'm on a 500/20 unlimited cable connection now and I pay $24.99 for it.

([Clan] Camp)bell?
 
Comcast imposes a terabyte usage cap on all of its service areas except the Northeast, where broadband competition is slightly more intense.

Well gee look at that, competition translates to not gouging customers for bullshit expenses.
 
([Clan] Camp)bell?

https://www.bell.ca/Bell_Internet/Internet_access

bell-packages.png
 
I've got a 400/20 Comcast connection. So far haven't hit a cap but I do watch quite a bit of 4k Netflix and the family constantly watches HD streams of things plus 100-200GB's of Steam downloads a month.
Do you only download like 2 games/month to a single pc? I think Shadow of War was 112GB ...and I have several games 40GB+
 
Depends on where you live I think.

In Ontario Canada you can get 1.5Gbps down and 1 Gbps up from bell as their best fibre offer.

For Cable internet best you get is 1 Gbps and 30mbps up which is similar to comcast in the US. Limitation is Docsis.

However i've not payed full internet prices in years because I keep getting discounts on my packages.

i'm on a 500/20 unlimited cable connection now and I pay $24.99 for it.
My 50% off discounted comcast business @ 20/150 is about CAD $160/mo. That is already discounted 50%. My other option is like 1 up, 8 down DSL. LOL.
 
I agree data caps are bullshit but how the hell do you use 3TB a month for home use. Granted I live alone but I even have a hard time hitting 1TB. I consider myself a extremely high user.

Just spitballing here:

Games are 100gb each now. Limited console storage means many people delete and redownload regularly. Could be called the SSD shuffle? Also removing and reinstalling is a common troubleshooting technicque. New games are prone complications.

Some people do collection upgrades always trying to get the ideal version of a series. So say Avatar maybe you had an h264 480p copy then you upgraded to a newly released 720p h264, then a month later you find a 1080p h265. Now you've downloaded whole series 3times and not watched it once.

Or you redownload all of an Anime series you already have because you find one with dual audio or subtitles from a different group you prefer.

There are also a lot of re-mastering of say original star wars trilogy or Lord of the rings. Tweaked for color and quality. Often fixing problems that made it into bluray release like happened with LOTR.

That's just me, I've got 5 other people with bv tablets, phones, consoles, and computers. Really ups family home stress when you are always fighting over bandwidth useage.
 
I've got a 400/20 Comcast connection. So far haven't hit a cap but I do watch quite a bit of 4k Netflix and the family constantly watches HD streams of things plus 100-200GB's of Steam downloads a month.

Netflix 4k uses h265 which requires half bandwidth of Amazon's 4k which uses h264.
 
As it stands, Comcast imposes a terabyte usage cap on all of its service areas except the Northeast, where broadband competition is slightly more intense.

Actual competition is the real solution. Where there's a choice in broadband providers, the costs are lower, speeds are higher, and they have no/high caps.

What we need is a law regulating broadband in locations where there's no competition.
They should not be allowed to use caps if there are no other broadband competitors available. (384kb DSL and cell phone data does not count as competition)

If they don't like the additional regulation, then allow competition in the area, and when a competitor is available to 90% of the local homes, then they would be spared the regulation.


How dare you sir!

Everyone on the internet knows only regulation or competition is the answer. Yet here you casually BTFO of that comforting simple binary option by suggesting something that adapts to the situation?

For shame.

Good day sir.
.
Good day.
 
Do you only download like 2 games/month to a single pc? I think Shadow of War was 112GB ...and I have several games 40GB+

No, I was being conservative there. I have two rigs in different rooms(2600k/1080TI 14440p & 4930k/2080TI 4k) that get regularly used so that number is probably much higher. I've also got a MSI Titan(980m SLI 1080p) laptop that I occasionally update new games too as a travel back up.
 
Netflix 4k uses h265 which requires half bandwidth of Amazon's 4k which uses h264.

Makes sense. I've noticed that Amazon takes a bit longer to switch over to 4k(some nights it really seems to struggle even when no one else in the house is using anything) while you can practically hold your breath for NetFlix. My newest t.v.(Sony Z9D) shows Netflix as streaming 15.26Mbits even in DolbyVision. I haven't really checked Amazon so much yet.
 
I can understand why tv providers are being on the defense about all of this. Pushing for ridiculous data price points(Pay per use) to data caps, laws, etc.

But hey, your technology is old school now to the main consumer. Either adapt, or move to the side for the new guys. No need to be a prick and not let others push out amazing products and ideas if you won't be the one to do so.
 
Which would be even worse.

As it stands now, last mile is already heavily regulated, and is why most areas have little to no competition. It is one of the great examples of crony capitalism. Local government controls ROW access and often limits line installs to one or two ISPs, everyone else is just buying bandwidth from them and reselling, which is why the prices are quite static. In other cases local government is the one that sets the "reasonable" price, just like with cable. Aka, regulatory capture.

In areas this has been opened up, such as areas Google fought to have ROW access, as they are one of the few with pockets deep enough to force their way in, prices dropped over night. Markets Comcast said they couldn't reduce prices and network was saturated for speeds, same month Google went in, Comcast cut prices and upped speeds. Another example being many areas in Houston where there are little to no restrictions, I have 6 ISP choices at my place, and pay $80/mo for 1Gbps/1Gbps.

Like I said, the US couldn't build a free market with both hands and a map.

New Zealand switched to regulated last mile fibre and now we have gigabit rolling out all over the show and shit tonnes of ISP's cropping up, like back in the ole 56k days. The local utility isn't allowed to pick winners or losers. How hard a concept is this?
 
Like I said, the US couldn't build a free market with both hands and a map.

New Zealand switched to regulated last mile fibre and now we have gigabit rolling out all over the show and shit tonnes of ISP's cropping up, like back in the ole 56k days. The local utility isn't allowed to pick winners or losers. How hard a concept is this?

Last mile in the US is fully regulated and owned by the government, how hard is that to understand? Not sure how you add more regulation than that. Keep in mind once this happened, innovation, speed gains and price drops slowed to a crawl. Not even getting into factors such as size of land mass to cover, where New Zealand is less than half the size of Texas alone.
 
My affinity for linux distro's and the number of friends and family on my Plex server has my monthly data usage north of 3TB. So I'm making the most of the $50/month I have to give comcast to not worry about data caps.
 
Like I said, the US couldn't build a free market with both hands and a map.

New Zealand switched to regulated last mile fibre and now we have gigabit rolling out all over the show and shit tonnes of ISP's cropping up, like back in the ole 56k days. The local utility isn't allowed to pick winners or losers. How hard a concept is this?

You don't seem to understand that the regulations in the US created the monopolies we currently face. Regulations by the people = people win. Corporate backed regulations (the ones in the US) = people lose.
 
You don't seem to understand that the regulations in the US created the monopolies we currently face. Regulations by the people = people win. Corporate backed regulations (the ones in the US) = people lose.

What I have found is that most people simply do not understand much of anything their government does.
 
It’s really weird to think of myself as lucky to have Charter Spectrum. No caps or throttling for me in my area. But 10 miles west, DSL or Comcast, 30 miles south Buckeye with datacaps.

We as a people straight up just need to figure a way to force these ISPs into no more data caps. Legislature against it seems the most sensible but lots of luck doing that.
Right now. with all the other ISP's and such that SHARTer has been buying, I wouldn't be surprised if their rectum, err, spectrum services get clearly defined data usage and BW caps.
 
For now. It was a condition of the merger that IIRC lapses in a few years.
AND you cant stay grandfathered into any old plans, any single change to your service requires a complete migration to the newer SHARTer plans, including a simple change of address as close as next door (apartment for example) will cause a complete account migration.
 
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