Netflix Helps You Avoid Hitting Bandwidth Caps

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
It's a damn shame that, in this day and age, this option even exists. Kudos to Netflix though for trying to help.

After you're logged into your Netflix account, just go into https://account.netflix.com/HdToggle and select from one of three options. "Good quality" at up to .3 GB per hour, "Better quality" at up to .7 GB per hour, and "Best" at up to 1GB per hour or up to 2.3GB/hr for HD. Recently AT&T added on a 150 GB cap for DSL users and a 250 GB cap for U-Verse customers.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah lovely... so now instead of getting blazing fast internet connections so that you can enjoy those high definition videos without a ton of buffering/pre-loading, you can still see the same old crap for more money!

I do find it funny that a 768k connection would have the same bandwidth cap as a 6Mbps connection
 
I have to agree with bandwith caps are shitty.
My buddy is stationed in japan and always tells me that he pitty my shitty contection I pay 70 bucks for.
 
I still have not recieved any sort of letter about bandwidth caps or anything saying I have gone over... which I do... weekly. No way am I going to watch downgraded video on my HDTV.
 
Its all a myth they just looking for an excuse to charge more money. Its funny how were going backwards in time instead of forward
 
250gb per MONTH ?
OK im not american, but thats insanelly low.
Thats about 300mb per hour if my math isnt way off.
Less then 1mbit.
So they are basically saying "use your 20mbit connection max 1 hour per day"

Thank god we dont have that, som -days- i "spend" several terabytes.
 
Those options are actually old now... they were implemented and added to netflix back in February when The Canadian Duopoly ISP's (Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron .. yeah there's 4 but they've split up our country to the point they all have no competition or at the most, it's Bell against one of them) were on the verge of implementing country wide 60GB caps regardless of who your actual ISP was. Thankfully our government stepped in and stopped it, so now only people who are actually with one of those 4 have the caps.
 
So, the end users suffer as well as the content providers. But, the transportation of the media is where more money is made for less service. Why do they keep jacking up prices but giving you less? They sure aren't putting it into infrastructure if they can't provide a decent service...

Glad to hear that Netflix is helping out the end user for the ISP's shortcomings, though.
 
Filter said:
Its all a myth they just looking for an excuse to charge more money. Its funny how were going backwards in time instead of forward
Click to expand...

Yes it is. Cable companies don't know how to fight against Netflix. They're afraid of thier business model becoming nothing more than dumb pipe providers as entertainment moves to streaming. So what do they do? Cash in with toll booths.
 
volvo said:
250gb per MONTH ?
OK im not american, but thats insanelly low.
Thats about 300mb per hour if my math isnt way off.
Less then 1mbit.
So they are basically saying "use your 20mbit connection max 1 hour per day"

Thank god we dont have that, som -days- i "spend" several terabytes.
Click to expand...
Pretty damn close. You pay for a 24Mbps connection (and lets assume you surf at areas that can get those speeds), you'll easily hit your limit with 1 hour per day.
 
Ur_Mom said:
So, the end users suffer as well as the content providers. But, the transportation of the media is where more money is made for less service. Why do they keep jacking up prices but giving you less? They sure aren't putting it into infrastructure if they can't provide a decent service...

Glad to hear that Netflix is helping out the end user for the ISP's shortcomings, though.
Click to expand...


It comes down to greed. They want more profits and do not want to spend the money on upgrading their aging infrastructure. When some hotshot start up comes to compete with them, they'll use all this money to buy them or run them out of business.

Welcome to corporate America, home of the franchised (legal monopoly) infrastructure.
 
You have to be doing extraordinary things to hit that cap

my total homes data which includes a 360 with Netflix on a HDTV set to highest quality, Wii with streaming on another HDTV, wifes laptop is on almost all day online, my desktop which does some casual Linux ISO searching and a lot of video gaming and surfing with two kids, two Android phones on the WiFi any time they are home, a Vonage phone set to highest quality up until a month ago...and other various devices like internet connected BluRay player, etc........

October 28, 2010 (Incoming: 355 MB / Outgoing: 37 MB)
November 2010 (Incoming: 57345 MB / Outgoing: 4822 MB)
December 2010 (Incoming: 88426 MB / Outgoing: 15817 MB)
January 2011 (Incoming: 43677 MB / Outgoing: 3026 MB)
February 2011 (Incoming: 49653 MB / Outgoing: 3477 MB)
March 2011 (Incoming: 120442 MB / Outgoing: 6046 MB)
April 2011 (Incoming: 213915 MB / Outgoing: 9060 MB) <-- disconnected Vonage phone
May 2011 (Incoming: 80070 MB / Outgoing: 5020 MB)
June 2011 (Incoming: 39321 MB / Outgoing: 16960 MB) <--23 days (upgraded from 10Mbit to 20Mbit speed about a week ago)
 
Yeah a couple providers want Netflix to pay for the bandwidth usage. Seems fair to sidestep them.
 
4 to 5 hours of netflix peer day? Get out of the house..... I have cablevision 50 down with no caps and even with downloaded torrents I only approach 100gb peer month.
 
I guess i kinda abuse my connection, but i do pay for 100/100 and i expect to get it.
1Gbit is avail here, but at 3 times the cost.
And tbh im not even close to cap 100mbit.

Date Incoming Outgoing Total
2011-06-01 3,1 GB 12,8 GB 15,9 GB
2011-06-02 6,7 GB 11,5 GB 18,2 GB
2011-06-03 99,1 GB 41,0 GB 140,2 GB
2011-06-04 5,9 GB 96,0 GB 101,9 GB
2011-06-05 6,6 GB 23,5 GB 30,1 GB
2011-06-06 46,8 GB 110,7 GB 157,5 GB
2011-06-07 14,5 GB 25,5 GB 39,9 GB
2011-06-08 17,5 GB 52,2 GB 69,7 GB
2011-06-09 120,4 GB 302,5 GB 422,9 GB
2011-06-10 13,1 GB 123,5 GB 136,6 GB
2011-06-11 12,8 GB 1,1 TB 1,1 TB
2011-06-12 8,6 GB 1,4 TB 1,4 TB
2011-06-13 26,4 GB 2,5 TB 2,6 TB
2011-06-14 449,9 GB 373,2 GB 823,1 GB
2011-06-15 2,3 TB 663,1 GB 3,0 TB
2011-06-16 844,0 GB 27,3 GB 871,3 GB
2011-06-17 43,2 GB 12,5 GB 55,7 GB
2011-06-18 49,6 GB 19,2 GB 68,9 GB
2011-06-19 19,8 GB 112,1 GB 131,9 GB
2011-06-20 7,6 GB 11,4 GB 19,0 GB
2011-06-21 15,1 GB 22,4 GB 37,5 GB
2011-06-22 13,2 GB 20,4 GB 33,6 GB
2011-06-23 35,2 GB 51,4 GB 86,6 GB
2011-06-24 499,0 MB 1,8 GB 2,3 GB

The TB numbers are backups running so they have to be disregarded.
Sry bout the messy table =/
 
LordCalin said:
Those options are actually old now... they were implemented and added to netflix back in February when The Canadian Duopoly ISP's (Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Videotron .. yeah there's 4 but they've split up our country to the point they all have no competition or at the most, it's Bell against one of them) were on the verge of implementing country wide 60GB caps regardless of who your actual ISP was. Thankfully our government stepped in and stopped it, so now only people who are actually with one of those 4 have the caps.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Shaw succumbed and My cap went up to 250 gig from 100. As a customer I usually get the short end of the stick, which makes me wonder whats coming down pipe.Shaw actually has competition, Telus. Telus only had 7m down 600k up in my area so Shaw could play the high price game . I think Shaw wanted to look good and changed their packages to benefit the consumers because Telus is rolling out tv through their phone lines and will give Shaw a run for their money. HD to be exact. Their will be real competition(hoping). Telus will have Landline , cell phones and now tv. Shaw will have cable and voip. Telus will have the advantage with cell phones and a better package mix. So if the prices are the same for internet and cable then service will be the deciding factor.
 
nobody_here said:
You have to be doing extraordinary things to hit that cap

my total homes data which includes a 360 with Netflix on a HDTV set to highest quality, Wii with streaming on another HDTV, wifes laptop is on almost all day online, my desktop which does some casual Linux ISO searching and a lot of video gaming and surfing with two kids, two Android phones on the WiFi any time they are home, a Vonage phone set to highest quality up until a month ago...and other various devices like internet connected BluRay player, etc........

October 28, 2010 (Incoming: 355 MB / Outgoing: 37 MB)
November 2010 (Incoming: 57345 MB / Outgoing: 4822 MB)
December 2010 (Incoming: 88426 MB / Outgoing: 15817 MB)
January 2011 (Incoming: 43677 MB / Outgoing: 3026 MB)
February 2011 (Incoming: 49653 MB / Outgoing: 3477 MB)
March 2011 (Incoming: 120442 MB / Outgoing: 6046 MB)
April 2011 (Incoming: 213915 MB / Outgoing: 9060 MB) <-- disconnected Vonage phone
May 2011 (Incoming: 80070 MB / Outgoing: 5020 MB)
June 2011 (Incoming: 39321 MB / Outgoing: 16960 MB) <--23 days (upgraded from 10Mbit to 20Mbit speed about a week ago)
Click to expand...

I think the big complainers are the massive torrent abusers. My usage looks similar to yours.
 
schizrade said:
I think the big complainers are the massive torrent abusers. My usage looks similar to yours.
Click to expand...



Mostly I would agree. There can be some legitimate high bandwidth exceptions but that's a minute number of people who don't get targeted by these caps anyways. They are the exception. They probably should be in a business class plan anyways.
 
Ugh, this is garbage that a company like netflix feels the need to do it. The only reason why they added this option is because of the ISPs being a-holes.

Comcast has a 105mbps tier now. Guess what? You hit the bandwidth usage cap in under 6 hours.

It amazes me to this day, that back in 1998 I had 10mbps down AND up, was a "low ping bastard" when it came to gaming because I never had a ping higher than 20, multiple static IPs, all that for $40 a month, now it's 2011 and I'm still getting shafted with worse service.

When comcast added their 250GB/month cap, I checked and sure enough I use around 200GB a month, which is down from what I used to use a few years back, and I don't even use netflix. If I opened a netflix account I'd end up over the cap for sure.

The cellphone companies are just as bad. Netflix and hulu for phones, all sorts of cloudbased stuff, over the air phone OS updates, oh yeah and a 2GB/month cap, wtf?

Hey knuckleheads. Try investing in your infrastructure maybe? Then once the horror stories stop for internet service providers, you'll be able to get the rest of the planet to be willing to sign up.
 
one30eight said:
I still have not recieved any sort of letter about bandwidth caps or anything saying I have gone over... which I do... weekly. No way am I going to watch downgraded video on my HDTV.
Click to expand...

Comcast is one that doesn't enforce the cap unless you are in an area where their is congestion. If you are in an area where the hubsite is not being hammered and effecting other customers, you can just use away.

They only take notice and act when somebody complains of slow speeds. Atleast that has been my experience. Luckily most of the places I have lived have been dominated by DSL and Comcast was the expensive option which not a lot of people chose. You get what you pay for from what I have seen.

I lived at my sisters place for a short duration where she had Qwest. It was horrible. 3.0/768 for something like $60/month, she did nothing but facebook and I was the only other user in the house. I couldn't believe what she was paying, and at times at night I would dip below 1mbit.

Moved to the Fiance's house, back on Comcast and back to great speeds.
 
I just can't see this cap thing working. Think about it, with the proliferation of higher and higher download speeds, even non hard core users are going to start getting bills in the mail from the gold old ISP saying they went over the cap.

Then, normal user Jane will call up and say, "But you ad didn't say anything about caps". CSR: "fine print"

Multiply this buy TONS of people and sooner or later the ISP's just won't be able to get away with it. They can now because it doesn't affect the regular user. But the natural consequence of faster downloads is more info downloaded.

It may take a couple of years, but when 70% of your user base is screaming about caps maxed out in a week or two because of Netflix, gaming, and surfing by everyone in the house, it'll stop.

I hope
 
Boomstick said:
I just can't see this cap thing working. Think about it, with the proliferation of higher and higher download speeds, even non hard core users are going to start getting bills in the mail from the gold old ISP saying they went over the cap.

Then, normal user Jane will call up and say, "But you ad didn't say anything about caps". CSR: "fine print"

Multiply this buy TONS of people and sooner or later the ISP's just won't be able to get away with it. They can now because it doesn't affect the regular user. But the natural consequence of faster downloads is more info downloaded.

It may take a couple of years, but when 70% of your user base is screaming about caps maxed out in a week or two because of Netflix, gaming, and surfing by everyone in the house, it'll stop.

I hope
Click to expand...

Unfortunately a lot of ISPs outside of the US(Canada, Australia, Europe, etc.) have had far worse caps in place than Comcast and AT&T for a lot longer now.
 
Is there any way to get around it? What shell out more money to raise your cap? These companys succk
 
i think compression technology is likely to help mitigate the cap issue in the coming years. Whoever comes out with a lossless compression algorithm that can accomplish this without affecting quality is going to be big.
 
schizrade said:
I think the big complainers are the massive torrent abusers. My usage looks similar to yours.
Click to expand...

Actually the big complainers are those who see this is simply a first step, one to a per byte (kilo,mega,giga) plan.

Now again, I wouldn't mind one fucking bit if any sort of pay for usage was based upon today's caps, meaning if you use 150GB/month you're paying the full $35/month, however fat chance at that happening at all.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Actually the big complainers are those who see this is simply a first step, one to a per byte (kilo,mega,giga) plan.

Now again, I wouldn't mind one fucking bit if any sort of pay for usage was based upon today's caps, meaning if you use 150GB/month you're paying the full $35/month, however fat chance at that happening at all.
Click to expand...



I think truly metered service at the right price would be great.
 
Merc1138 said:
Unfortunately a lot of ISPs outside of the US(Canada, Australia, Europe, etc.) have had far worse caps in place than Comcast and AT&T for a lot longer now.
Click to expand...

Thankfully even tho we have worse caps, we do have some options tho... I have slow ass 5M/512M because that's the best I can get without caps, but hey... it's uncapped... and to be sure I take advantage of that with an average 3-400GB a month (0 Torrents, mostly because torrents are throttled to unbearable download speeds).

The only other downside is the fact they are throttling, and not just torrents ... when netflix first came to canada, I was streaming it non-stop HD ... even tho only 5M, and it worked flawlessly. Now I can't even watch it on the lowest quality without it pausing to buffer. Even youtube is throttled, I can go click any movie I want, and it's not gunna play fully.
 
LordCalin said:
Most people have no problem with metered service, the problem is the gouging, they want between $2.50 to $5 per GB.
Click to expand...

hrm....for my cell...i pay $30 a month for unlimited, but i use 2-5Gb a month data

but my house......i use far more

so $5 per Gb would be terrible
 
I really can't believe that people put up with this from an ISP. When I pay for an internet connection I expect it to be able to supply me with 100% load whether I use it or not. At work we currently have 3 ISPs supplying DSL, Cable and T1 connections. None of them impose any type of bandwidth cap on us. Before getting each I made sure of this and they all said that there wouldn't ever be a problem with how much we used. Our DSL line did gripe once about heavy upload but after talking to them they backed off.
 
add the new "cloud" more and more info is getting stored remotely, just adding to the data flow over the internet, and both ISPs and Cell providers will stand to make money if they can keep the caps high enough to avoid mass backlash but low enough that a good portion of users will cross it now and then.

since the start of my internet access, my speed has tripled, but my cap has only gone up 30%
 
MikeTrike said:
I guess I'm not going to AT&T U-Verse now. :p
Click to expand...

I also don't know why they cap it so low, with the amount of connectivity they have it's insane.

For example if you do a gig commit at a data-center you can get $1/mo per Mb easily. Which means you can push about 316GB over that if you run it 24/7... for a dollar. Granted different connects with various companies for certain areas will vary. But AT&T is f***ing huge and should be able to offer better caps since they are placing them!

It's like they want to f*** you in the @$$ because they see more and more going to the cloud, passing more and more traffic. So they just see more $$$ :(
 
If you run any sort of cloud backup with alot of data this cap hurts alot of users.
 
MikeTrike said:
I also don't know why they cap it so low, with the amount of connectivity they have it's insane.

For example if you do a gig commit at a data-center you can get $1/mo per Mb easily. Which means you can push about 316GB~ over that if you run it 24/7 (316,000GB~ for the entire Gb link, for reference)... for a dollar. Granted different connects with various companies for certain areas will vary. But AT&T is f***ing huge and should be able to offer better caps since they are placing them!

It's like they want to f*** you in the @$$ because they see more and more going to the cloud, passing more and more traffic. So they just see more $$$ :(
Click to expand...

Exactly. Comcast used to claim it was the "abusers" going beyond 250GB/month, and everyone else was under 10GB/month. They still want to stick to those claims because it's BS and they know it, but they want to rake in all the money from the streaming and cloud services. Same for AT&T, Verizon, etc. Hulu, Netflix, online backup services, cloud services for personal storage like music, online applications like google has, remote office software, VOIP, etc. is content going through their pipes that people pay for in a lot of instances, and the ISPs want a bigger cut.

Anyone who thinks that the ISPs are going to price a $ per GB/month plan so only the "abusers" end up paying any extra are fooling themselves. It's precisely the opposite reason why you'll never see a truly a la carte channel plan from a cable or satellite TV provider. They could never explain to the public why the bill would end up the same even though you only subscribe to the 10 channels you actually watch instead of the 800 channels you currently receive(anyone ever notice that the channels always seem broken up into packages where you need 2 or 3 packages to get the 3 channels you really want?), but they'll be more than happy to blame the higher internet connection bills for people on the third party services they've been using(that your ISP doesn't make a dime off of).
 
isp's fear is being a dumb datapipe, but thats exactly what they are. they see the writing on the wall and are getting scared

im getting a data only iphone soon and am going to make voip calls and using im instead of text. isps, you are a bitpipe and i will use you as such for much cheaper rates.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top