Insider: Verizon Caps FiOS At 10 TB And DSL At 1.5 TB

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So much for "we don't cap usage in any form." Having said that, I couldn't imagine hitting a 1.5TB cap on DSL. :eek:

"FiOS Internet customers we have contacted would have to watch at least 6,660 SD movies per month or 222 SD movies per day to consume the amount of data they are using per month," Verizon tells me. "High Speed Internet customers we have contacted would have to watch at least 1000 SD movies per month or 33 SD movies per day to consume the amount of data they are using per month."
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As long as they advertise this PROMINENTLY everywhere they sell FiOS... because before all you see is UNLIMITED, UNLIMITED, UNLIMITED!*

*not really unlimited
 
Why do they even measure in SD anymore... if you've got FIOS, you've likely got HD or 4K. All this does is make the numbers "look" big.
 
Who watches movies in SD quality anymore?
This is a bit troublesome as their mid tier (75mbit) can reach a total of around 23TB a month if left on full blast 24/7.
 
It would be nice if the provides would simply stop using the term "unlimited" and go with something more...descriptive of their throttling policies.

Not against throttling at all (network congestion is a serious concern, unfortunately), but it's still false marketing if they advertise unlimited services if its not really unlimited.
 
Don't they approach most of these customers based on the fact that they are operating servers of some sort, which is prohibited in their contracts? Almost all the ISPs that are selling personal internet services specify that they cannot be used for servers which is why they are trying to push them over to business packages ... unlimited data packages still have to be used within the contractual boundaries defined by the internet provider ;)
 
atp1916 said:
Not against throttling at all (network congestion is a serious concern, unfortunately), but it's still false marketing if they advertise unlimited services if its not really unlimited.
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Is it really though? Those Comcast/Time Warner anti-trust investigations showed that Comcast is enjoying I think they said a 107% profit margin on home internet sales alone.

In any business, that is a HUGE profit margin, and means that they could have a more reasonable 15% profit margin and have absolute fortunes to spend on infrastructure upgrades and just have the CEO buying a slightly smaller private island.
 
in 1997 the first cable internet provider in Belgium offered 1.5Mbps down, in their contract they had a limit written down: 300Mb. Of course this was ridiculous, even in 1997, they told people however that they would not enforce this limit.

we're now almost 20 years later. they are also selling an unlimited plan (€70/month) for 200Mbps, but unlimited for them means: if you use more than 500Gb between 12:00 (noon) and 00:00 (midnight), your speed is reduced to 10Mbps until the next billing run! if you schedule your downloads between midnight and noon you stay unlimited.
 
So in other words... 10TB on a 500mbps (62.5MBps) FIOS connection is capped at 1.85 days at full utilization?

Seems awfully far from the goal of providing a monthly service. The 50mbps service seems to be a more "reasonable" 18.5 days though.

Basically the lesson is don't waste money on higher tier service plans?
 
Ducman69 said:
Is it really though? Those Comcast/Time Warner anti-trust investigations showed that Comcast is enjoying I think they said a 107% profit margin on home internet sales alone.

In any business, that is a HUGE profit margin, and means that they could have a more reasonable 15% profit margin and have absolute fortunes to spend on infrastructure upgrades and just have the CEO buying a slightly smaller private island.
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Stop saying that! You're suggesting COMMUNISM, or SOCIALISM, OR BOTH!!!

How dare you suggest that someone makes too much money.

FWIW, I have no issue with someone being richer than me, especially if they have a better skill set then I have. What I do have issue with is them voting themselves a raise and insane bonus when regular workers can't object. I'm not suggesting a union, just saying its beyond fucked up that someone who portrays an unmatched skill set when really they're idiots, or at the very best no smarter than the average person makes 300% more.

It'll eventually correct itself, its just a matter of when.
 
kbrickley said:
Don't they approach most of these customers based on the fact that they are operating servers of some sort, which is prohibited in their contracts? Almost all the ISPs that are selling personal internet services specify that they cannot be used for servers which is why they are trying to push them over to business packages ... unlimited data packages still have to be used within the contractual boundaries defined by the internet provider ;)
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These are DL limits I think we're talking about. It might be DL+UL, but even then there's probably a separate lower limit for uploads like from servers that will get you one of those automatic passive-aggressive emails.

If they really wanted to stop people from running servers they could block all inbound connections on their end. The average server - hosting maybe a few low-hit websites - is probably not a problem for them, just like the average user probably isn't a problem. The majority of people that are really going to hit these limits are people uploading or downloading tons of video.

All this video sharing of course competes with their TV sub business. No conflict of interest there.
 
Great.

So how exactly is this 10TB measured? Full Duplex? Do I get 10TB up and 10TB down?

Or is it 10TB combined?

Suddenly my expensive 150/150 internet plan is worth only a fraction of what it used to be worth, when I can exhaust my 10TB limit in 6.5 days downstream only, or 3.25 if saturating full duplex.

I am very strongly of the opinion that when I pay for 150Mbit/150Mbit, I am paying for it in both directions, 24/7.

If I am paying for a 150/150 plan, my cap per month should be what I can transfer by maxing out my 150/150 connection in that month, in other words ~47TB each way, in the average month.

Nothing less is acceptable.

Google fiber can't get here soon enough to end these abusive practices.
 
People do a LOT more than just watch movies on their high speed connections. Even if they aren't pirating. I uninstall and re-install 10gb+ games on steam because I get a hair up my ass to play a game just for the weekend. I am also a developer checking stuff in and out of very large projects in source control, copying large files from my office, and downloading 3gb+ ISO's consistently. All that in addition to streaming HD movies to the 3 TVs in my household. I'm generally hitting at least 3-500gb on any given month, without pirating jack.

Anyhow, those limits seem well within reason, it's not that that bugs me, just the ignorance of those statements. They just assume everybody is sitting around watching movies all day, like we are all a bunch of mindless zombies that have nothing better to do that might consume large amounts of bandwidth. I have no doubt some of the people going over those limits are most likely participating in some form of P2P 'activities'. But honestly, who gives a shit? I never believed it was the ISPs responsibility to worry about what users are doing with their bandwidth unless they are causing a disruption for other customers.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041583326 said:
If I am paying for a 150/150 plan, my cap per month should be what I can transfer by maxing out my 150/150 connection in that month, in other words ~47TB each way, in the average month.

Nothing less is acceptable.

Google fiber can't get here soon enough to end these abusive practices.
Click to expand...

I completely agree, but what makes you think Google isn't going to do the same thing when or if they become more mainstream?
 
We don't come close to 10TB on our 75/75 FIOS line. Between the five of us here, we average only around 400 gigs per month. Good to know we have some breathing room :) I'm sure that will change once we get some 4k in the house, but 10TB is still a lot by home internet standards.

ISPs are slowly but surely moving away from the "unlimited" plan structure - long-term I think its going to end up similar to how we pay for utilities like power and water. Whether or not thats a good thing remains to be seen, but I think it might help to avoid average users subsidizing the heavy abusers.

I would be ok with a plan that charged 20 per-month for access plus $10 per-TB.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041583326 said:
Great.

So how exactly is this 10TB measured? Full Duplex? Do I get 10TB up and 10TB down?

Or is it 10TB combined?

Suddenly my expensive 150/150 internet plan is worth only a fraction of what it used to be worth, when I can exhaust my 10TB limit in 6.5 days downstream only, or 3.25 if saturating full duplex.

I am very strongly of the opinion that when I pay for 150Mbit/150Mbit, I am paying for it in both directions, 24/7.

If I am paying for a 150/150 plan, my cap per month should be what I can transfer by maxing out my 150/150 connection in that month, in other words ~47TB each way, in the average month.

Nothing less is acceptable.

Google fiber can't get here soon enough to end these abusive practices.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I don't understand how they are allowed to falsely advertise "unlimited". Unlimited is defined as you can't use it up. So given a set connection speed, "unlimited" should be equivalent of the max symmetrical speed running 24/7 for the entire billing period. Anything less is capped service.
 
haz_mat said:
We don't come close to 10TB on our 75/75 FIOS line. Between the five of us here, we average only around 400 gigs per month. Good to know we have some breathing room :) I'm sure that will change once we get some 4k in the house, but 10TB is still a lot by home internet standards.

ISPs are slowly but surely moving away from the "unlimited" plan structure - long-term I think its going to end up similar to how we pay for utilities like power and water. Whether or not thats a good thing remains to be seen, but I think it might help to avoid average users subsidizing the heavy abusers.

I would be ok with a plan that charged 20 per-month for access plus $10 per-TB.
Click to expand...

Ultimately that is probably the best compromise ... the other things we buy that we have unlimited access to are Water, Power, and Sewer ... we pay for each of those items based on usage ... although some consumers will scream like bloody murder if that sort of system is implemented it is the best for both consumers and providers
 
Wierdo said:
Basically the lesson is don't waste money on higher tier service plans?
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Nope! There are a lot of people who don't care and will always buy bigger/better/more regardless of whether or not it's excessive, wasteful, or cost ineffective. That's why sport utility vehicles and gigantic pickup trucks with those creepy gonad things on their trailer hitches exist. That's why discrete graphics cards are found in home computers and why credit card companies sell debts to collections agencies. Brains need not apply when it comes to internet service and thank goodness that's the case since zombies are totally gonna starve to death if they come to America looking for something to eat.
 
haz_mat said:
We don't come close to 10TB on our 75/75 FIOS line. Between the five of us here, we average only around 400 gigs per month. Good to know we have some breathing room :) I'm sure that will change once we get some 4k in the house, but 10TB is still a lot by home internet standards.

ISPs are slowly but surely moving away from the "unlimited" plan structure - long-term I think its going to end up similar to how we pay for utilities like power and water. Whether or not thats a good thing remains to be seen, but I think it might help to avoid average users subsidizing the heavy abusers.

I would be ok with a plan that charged 20 per-month for access plus $10 per-TB.
Click to expand...

Lol.. That is still too much.

Maybe $20 + $1 per TB.

Now the people that are obviously violating the TOS should just be cut off completely. They get 3 chances, each offense brings a longer cut off. After the 3rd offense they are cut off for a year.

If you are using max bandwidth on a high-speed connection 24/7 then you are definitely not just using it for personal and/or legal purposes.
 
haz_mat said:
We don't come close to 10TB on our 75/75 FIOS line. Between the five of us here, we average only around 400 gigs per month. Good to know we have some breathing room :) I'm sure that will change once we get some 4k in the house, but 10TB is still a lot by home internet standards.

ISPs are slowly but surely moving away from the "unlimited" plan structure - long-term I think its going to end up similar to how we pay for utilities like power and water. Whether or not thats a good thing remains to be seen, but I think it might help to avoid average users subsidizing the heavy abusers.

I would be ok with a plan that charged 20 per-month for access plus $10 per-TB.
Click to expand...

Same here. I have a 150/150 line and the most I have ever used was 650GB.

Up and down on a T3 my office only used up 899.96GB for the month of April. That is for 300 people in 10 floors and 2 buildings in Downtown LA. Hell add in our 2 satellite offices and we hit 1.2TB.

How the crap do some of you guys hit 10TB in a month at home? :confused: You running COLOs?
 
cyclone3d said:
Lol.. That is still too much.

Maybe $20 + $1 per TB.

Now the people that are obviously violating the TOS should just be cut off completely. They get 3 chances, each offense brings a longer cut off. After the 3rd offense they are cut off for a year.

If you are using max bandwidth on a high-speed connection 24/7 then you are definitely not just using it for personal and/or legal purposes.
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That's not for you or VZ to judge. It's still false advertising. How it may be that I have so much data is none of your business.
 
Oh crap. Today is the 4th of May and just checked and so far I've transferred 5.2TB on our 75/75 line.

*sigh*

That's not good for me. Since it's almost all traffic for work I wonder if I can get my work to pay for a business class line to my house? HA, yeah right. I understand that 10TB is a lot for most users. However, for some of us it's not. I do a lot of working with VM's between our office servers, Azure, and Amazon's EC2. Not to mention checking code in for various projects.

Combine that with the streaming me, my wife, and my two teenagers do to various TV's/devices, downloading of games, etc... So yeah, 10TB could be easily reached fairly easily.
 
Aaaand I no longer want Fios. I'll stick with my current, local option (400 tb cap).
 
Holy hell... 10TB? I could understand if people get upset over 1TB, but 10?!? I cannot fathom how you could hit that via legal means. I d/l all my games digitally, I have netflix streaming which seems to be playing on at least one device at any give time in my house. I work from home a lot and that includes remote desktop work and vpn overhead. About the only thing I do not do is offsite backup of my home systems. I hit 6-700gb/month regularly. I just don't see how somebody could to 10x that unless they are d/ling every bluray that comes out or runnning servers out of their home.

I currently have 320/20 mbps with twc, so I could definitely hit 10TB if I let it sit there all day d/ling stuff off usenet or did bittorrent/etc.
 
lollerwaffle said:
That's not for you or VZ to judge. It's still false advertising. How it may be that I have so much data is none of your business.
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Unless Verizon specifies in their TOS acceptable and unacceptable uses ... Since unlimited data is not to the advantage of the ISP I would expect it to disappear soon ... metered internet is better for the ISP since they can now sell you as much internet as you can afford to buy and it also benefits the consumer since they will use their data in the most efficient way

A company like Google has an incentive to sell you unlimited services since they benefit from you the more you use the internet (through advertising, use of their products, and any data they are able to glean from their users) ... and perhaps that is also part of the solution, no ISP should be a dumb pipe (they should all own services or have access to their subscriber data to make usage for them more valuable)
 
Unlimited should mean unlimited. If not, it's deceptive.

10TB is a lot. MOST users will never get close to that. So, for those few that do, it shouldn't matter. You get 90% using <1TB a month and 8% using 1-5TB a month. That other 2% goes over that. There should be no limits as the majority of users will use a fraction of that. It should easily average out to a good amount. There's plenty of bandwidth available, unless they are grossly overselling and not upgrading their network.

Whatever it takes to increase profit margins, I guess. All by continuing to screw the consumer. I wish there was more competition around. Google is doing well, but they seem to be the only competition in some markets (which makes the other guys offer more for the same price).
 
Dawill said:
Holy hell... 10TB? I could understand if people get upset over 1TB, but 10?!? I cannot fathom how you could hit that via legal means. I d/l all my games digitally, I have netflix streaming which seems to be playing on at least one device at any give time in my house. I work from home a lot and that includes remote desktop work and vpn overhead. About the only thing I do not do is offsite backup of my home systems. I hit 6-700gb/month regularly. I just don't see how somebody could to 10x that unless they are d/ling every bluray that comes out or runnning servers out of their home.

I currently have 320/20 mbps with twc, so I could definitely hit 10TB if I let it sit there all day d/ling stuff off usenet or did bittorrent/etc.
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Does it really matter, though? They could be downloading animal porn, and it wouldn't matter. It's those little bits that matter. That's all the ISP is providing - transport for those little 1's and 0's. Whether it's 1GB a month or 10TB.

I don't even get close to that, and I do a lot of streaming & downloading (Netflix, Youtube, Sling, Hulu, torrents, Pandora, gaming, Steam/Xbox downloads, MSDN downloads). But, I know others can do it easily. Unlimited used to mean unlimited. Now, it's up to a certain amount, then you're throttled or charged more.
 
Yeah Verizon needs to do like Comcast was forced to do and define caps. Granted these caps will be less than a 10th of these "unofficial" caps because people are dicks and once these caps are defined, people will strive to hit them. If you think you deserve 150/150 24/7/365 you need to price an OC-3.

10TB is well above the "legitimate use" cutoff and well into the "either running a business serving customers or into some shady shit" territory.

I'll go ahead and guess when they are forced to put caps on now that it will be around the 500GB range.
 
-Dragon- said:
Yeah Verizon needs to do like Comcast was forced to do and define caps. Granted these caps will be less than a 10th of these "unofficial" caps because people are dicks and once these caps are defined, people will strive to hit them. If you think you deserve 150/150 24/7/365 you need to price an OC-3.

10TB is well above the "legitimate use" cutoff and well into the "either running a business serving customers or into some shady shit" territory.

I'll go ahead and guess when they are forced to put caps on now that it will be around the 500GB range.
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500 GB is still low if you do a lot of streaming ... although my Comcast isn't enforcing limits, it does track usage and on months when I stream a lot on nights and weekends I can cross 300 GB easy ... if you had multiple users in a household then you could get into the TB range ... if we went with a metered internet approach then depending on your speed tier I would expect the standard monthly subscription to run $30-60 for 3-6 TB ... they could then sell you additional increments of $5-10 for 5-10 TB increments maybe ... that would seem to be reasonable and market competitive ... depending on the fine print in Net Neutrality they could also cut deals where either their own services or other services (that pay a fee) don't count against the cap
 
My take on it is the limit itself is meaningless right now. I would say the goal is to have people accept the *idea* of a cap.

Once people in general accept the idea of a cap it becomes pretty simple to adjust pricing and limits citing marketing pressure.
 
Wierdo said:
So in other words... 10TB on a 500mbps (62.5MBps) FIOS connection is capped at 1.85 days at full utilization?

Seems awfully far from the goal of providing a monthly service. The 50mbps service seems to be a more "reasonable" 18.5 days though.

Basically the lesson is don't waste money on higher tier service plans?
Click to expand...

Their goal isn't to provide a monthly service. It is to rake in cash from a captive subscriber base.
 
How many movies would it be for 4k? I'm looking forward to next year to have more sources for 4k content. Depending on how many movies I watch, I could come close to the 10TB cap.
 
XViper said:
How many movies would it be for 4k? I'm looking forward to next year to have more sources for 4k content. Depending on how many movies I watch, I could come close to the 10TB cap.
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Well Netflix CEOs have said they can do 4K streaming with 15megabit/second speeds.

So

90-minute movie:
90 minutes x 60 seconds/minute x 15 megabits/second=81,000 megabits of data=9.88 gigabytes

120-minute movie:
120x60x15=108,000 megabits of data=13.2 gigabytes

Therefore in data cap terms:

10TB cap:
-90min movie: 1012 4K Netflix movies
-120min movie: 757 4K Netflix movies

1.5TB cap:
-90min movie: 151 4K Netflix movies
-120min movie: 113 4K Netflix movies
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
...gigantic pickup trucks with those creepy gonad things on their trailer hitches exist....
Click to expand...

I believe the term you are looking for is "truck nuts". My friend has a pair on his F-150. I don't really get the appeal, but I have to admit that his truck nuts are bigger than mine, so maybe that's the appeal?

Paying for usage a la public service utilities like electricity, water or sewer may just be the first step in transitioning to a traditional public service utility model. The lines are already pretty grey in this area, especially with electric companies providing fibre to the home in some states/municipalities. Either way I'm pretty sure it will just be a system to get us to pay more for less.

The argument could be made that light users are subsidizing heavy users in an unlimited usage model, but we would also have to take into account that the majority of the costs for such services are simply in setting up the infrastructure to deliver the service. Therefore, the minimum amount per GB that a light user would have to pay may not work out to be significantly cheaper than what they are paying now, if there are any savings at all. The ISPs operate with huge profit margins for Internet service in most cases and I doubt they would be willing to pass any theoretical savings on to the consumer anyway. The more likely scenario is simply light users will pay approximately the same amount as they currently do and heavy users will pay more than they currently do.
 
atp1916 said:
It would be nice if the provides would simply stop using the term "unlimited" and go with something more...descriptive of their throttling policies.

Not against throttling at all (network congestion is a serious concern, unfortunately), but it's still false marketing if they advertise unlimited services if its not really unlimited.
Click to expand...

This is the XX.95 way of pricing though, unlimited looks a whole lot better than 10TB, or 1.5TB which looks absolutely horrible in comparison(even though it's probably not even feasible with a DSL line)
 
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