Will Cable Unplug the File Swappers?

netringer writes "The cable companies are planning to give the RIAA's case a hand and limit P2P file swapping. Yahoo has the Business Week story that cable companies are considering going away from the flat rate pricing model for cable Internet access. They plan to set a lower bandwidth cap for the flat rate and the raise the rates for bandwidth hogs who exceed the cap."

Comments

They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[Rombuu]

...they are doing this becuase they are losing their asses providing broadband at current prices.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[DavittJPotter]

I'd like to see you back this up; I'm curious as to how they're losing their asses at current prices.

If you figure $50/mo for broadband, and with say 5,000 subscribers, that's $250,000 monthly in revenue. I don't know what a DS3 costs, mind you, but I can't see it being even $100,000 monthly. Equipment costs, employees, I realize, all take part of that pie, but WTF is all this money going?

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[Dark Nexus]

1) A DS3 isn't that great. I worked for a local ISP that had 2 of them as BACKUP for the OC-12 rings. A cable operation would be looking at an OC line, minimum. Probably an OC-12 at least. Looking at several hundred thousand a month.

2) The backbones (generally) aren't flat-rate. They have to pay so much per Gbit transferred generally. This is why most hosting companies take the approach that DSL and Cable providers are starting to look at, with X GB included in the monthly cost, with every GB (generally) over that costing extra.

Now, having said that, your question still stands for the companies that own their own backbone, like AT&T.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[gmack]

With Videotron I pay $20 a month and pay extra for over use. I actually like it this way because I do all of my downloading from the office anyhow and this way I don't subsidise other people's high b/w use.

Did I mention that's $20 CDN? I'm paying less than 1/3 of what you are when you toss in the exchange rate.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[ichimunki]

Try reading the article for a change. Sheesh.

RUNNING FOR COVER. The cable companies' adoption of new pricing strategies has less to do with stopping piracy than with economics and business models. At an average monthly cost of $45, broadband is still perceived as too expensive by many consumers, and in recent months, prices have been rising, rather than dropping. That's slowing subscriber growth. According to market-research firm ARS, the rate of new signups for broadband in the first quarter of 2002 slid to 12%, the worst quarter on record.

Disappointing demand has left cable operators scrambling to cover the $60 billion they spent building and upgrading their networks over the past decade. At the same time, they've tired of seeing a small group of heavy users tax their networks while paying the same flat rate as everybody else. AT&T Broadband says on its system, 1% percent of users account for 16% of bandwidth consumption.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[Dun Malg]

AT&T Broadband says on its system, 1% percent of users account for 16% of bandwidth consumption.

What bugs me is the way they throw out this stat as if it's astounding-- it's not. Look at any system used by numerous people and you'll see about the same distribution. Take the US interstate highway system, for example: I'd lay money that 1% of the drivers thereon account for more than 16% of the traffic. How about campgrounds? 1% of the population accounts for a whopping 90% of campground usage. Their complaint is statistically meaningless.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[Squareball]

Well i'm not sure how raising prices and charging per Gbit a month will help the RIAA. I pay $50 a month for my cable ISP. If I download say 25 albums and they charge me what 20-30 dollars more a month for that usage.. I STILl am ahead! An album costs $17.99 or so on average. If I pay 25 bucks and get 25 albums, WHY would I go BACK to the record store? I am still getting a hell of a deal right?

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[sysadmn]

On the contrary. It's the cost of a broadband connection vis-a-vis dial-up that's slowing adoption. If the average user is paying $9.95 (yeah, right) or $19.95, $40 seems way to much. Throttling the pipe should allow the companies to sell an entry level service for $29.99, then premium services for $39.99, etc.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[letxa2000]

Look at any system used by numerous people and you'll see about the same distribution. Take the US interstate highway system, for example: I'd lay money that 1% of the drivers thereon account for more than 16% of the traffic. How about campgrounds? 1% of the population accounts for a whopping 90% of campground usage. Their complaint is statistically meaningless.

You got that right. Their "complaint" is not important. Virtually no businesses are able to obtain the exact same profit level on every single sale. There will be sales that are more profitable than others, but the idea is that the pricing is such that, as a whole, you make money.

As you said, the entire population subsidizes the highway system used heavily by a small minority.

Consumers that carry large balances on their credit card give banks the money so that I can charge everything, pay it off, and pay absolutely nothing.

Many people have insurance and they end up paying for my mistake if I crash and cause lots of damage and medical bills. My premiums certainly didn't cover it.

It is also incredible to see companies trying to ration the use of their own product. It's counterproductive. The whole point of broadband is to be able to consume tons of data quickly. When they start limiting that they are reducing the value of their product and also limiting the things that can be done with Internet--and not just P2P. Videoconferencing, VoIP, gaming, streaming radio... These are things that 99% of the people still don't do, and WON'T do if they are limited on their bandwidth.

As has been said, it's a monopoly. They can charge, so they will. They want millions of users using their broadband at dial-up levels, but charging them $50/month instead of $9/month that dial-up costs.

Re:They aren't doing this because of the RIAA...

[shemnon]

But the difference is that for all of your examples there is pay for use.

Cars? Try state and federal taxes on gasoline. 1% of the drivers also pay for more than 16% of highway taxes

Campgrounds? Try per night rates.

Healtcare? 1% of the users account for 99% of the cost, and we pay for it in insurance. Ok, you got me on that one!

Will This help?

[rblancarte]

Probably - but it won't totally curb it.

Hell, where I see the problem is that it could go so far as to HURT the sales of Cable broadband connections, in which case they will probably have to go back to the flat rate system again.

RonB

Re:Will This help?

[kafka93]

Yes; I'd wager that many of the people who have broadband have it precisely because they *use* the bandwidth; if you're only transferring email, web pages, etc., then you might just as well use a dialup connection. The ability to transfer large files quickly and cheaply is the raison d'etre for cable/dsl/etc. -- if it becomes too expensive for the average user to transfer mp3s and pirated software, they're just not going to pay it. It's difficult to gauge what the critical point might be, but I would be doubtful as to my willingness to spend anything more than, say, $100/month -- and I imagine that's more than most.

I believe that the "pay for content" idea is inherently flawed, and that it won't succeed whether applied to bandwidth or to web site access. I'd wager that, from an economic standpoint, introducing such fees would lead to *decreased* revenue for the providers. Only if the cost of broadband for the non-bw-hog were reduced to levels equal to or below those of regular dialup connections might such a change become at all viable..

Having said all of that, I imagine that what we might wind up seeing is a model akin to that of cellular phones, where various pricing levels are available according to projected bandwidth use, with excess being charged at a set rate - but the cable companies will need to be *very* careful in determining the ideal prices and, at any rate, you can bet that the need to compete with DSL etc. will keep any price hikes in check.

Sympatico and Rogers

[fatwreckfan]

Here in Canada, Sympatico's ADSL is already capped at 5GB up and 5GB down per month. Roger's cable will be following suit soon, but still no official word. Any info that's available now can be found in the Residential Broadband User's Assocation forum at http://www.rbua.org/board.

On top of the transfer caps both have increased the price of their service by $5/month, and apparently Rogers will be changing from a 3Mbps service to a 1.5Mbps service.

I thought technology was supposed to move forward.

Re:Sympatico and Rogers

[Electrum]

BTW, if any sympatico users with debian boxes running ipmasq are worried about keeping Sympatico honest about their usage, apt-get install ipac.

Better yet, install MRTG. The mrtg-ip-acct program will read the IP accounting statistics directly from your iptables firewall. There is no need for the depracated ipchains compatibility module. Simply create a config file for it, such as /etc/mrtg.cfg:

WorkDir: /var/www/mrtg/
WriteExpires: Yes

Title[eth0]: Traffic Analysis for tourian
PageTop[eth0]: Traffic Analysis for tourian
Target[eth0]: `/usr/bin/mrtg-ip-acct eth0`
MaxBytes[eth0]: 12000000

You will need to have it run every five minutes, using cron, so add an entry to your crontab:

*/5 * * * * root /usr/bin/mrtg /etc/mrtg.cfg

Because the default page generated is named .html, for some reason, certain browsers (Internet Explorer) want to cache it no matter what you do. So the easiest thing to do is to wrap it in a PHP script, such as index.php:

My cable modem provider limits us to one gigabyte per day. After numerous arguments with my roommate, including how exactly to read and interpret these graphs, and because they do not cover a day exactly (we are supposedly counted from midnight to midnight), I wrote a simple PHP script to modify the MRTG output with nice, easily readable usage statistics:

http://david.maridia.com/mrtg/

The numbers at the top of the page are always live, since MRTG graphs are not. Note that the page has a latency of at least one second, because it takes two counter readings, one second apart, to generate the current usage rate. This is not always totally accurate, but should be close enough. Reloading the page a couple of times may give better results. The source to the script is available here:

http://david.maridia.com/mrtg/index.phps

Cable modem providers business model flawed

[fruey]

Every major company providing broadband got it wrong. Modems peak out at 56kbps. That's usually about 4KB/s, 5 if you're lucky. No single consumer can hurt your bandwidth.

Now provide broadband at the same flatrate type scheme. Now, your guy who stays online for hours but just chats on IRC and reads mail costs you way less than some dude who d/ls ISOs and streams 300kbps from real.com once a week.

They all got it wrong. Now they have to backtrack. Lowcost flatrate, unlimited broadband will become a thing of the past. I'd put my house on it.

Re:Cable modem providers business model flawed

[theCoder]

I wouldn't be so quick to put your house on it, unless you define what lowcost means. Consumers tend to like flatrate, unlimited things. Not all consumers, but there's a market for it. Why? Because it's (a) easier to deal with, especially in a budget and (b) not going to increase sharply without warning. Other service markets have flatrate options. For example, AT&T is advertising a lot for some program that offers unlimited calling to certain people (that's the catch) for a flat rate. ISPs did flatrate service for years after it had been metered. Memberships to zoos and museums or season passes to theme parks are the same idea.

The cable market is in a crunch right now because they didn't charge enough for their flatrate. Because they're a monopoly, they may be able to get away with charging per use like electricity, but that's only because also like electric companies, there's not much competition. If there was competition in the cable market (not other forms of broadband, actual cable provider competition), there would always be a flatrate option, IMHO. It may not be lowcost (compared to the alternatives), but it would exist.

Re:Cable modem providers business model flawed

[rnd()]

I too think you're wrong about this:

Companies in the bandwidth business service to homes and business (this includes DSL, cablemodems, and T1s, etc.) have always effectively been bandwidth speculators. If you run an ISP and you have 10 customers with T1s and 100 with 56K modem access, you only need to purchase enough bandwidth to cover your customers' peak usage. It is the difference in price of the bandwidth you buy vs the bandwidth you sell that largely determines the amount of profit that you make.

Depending on the kind of quality of service guarantee that you make to your customers (usually 100% bandwidth for business customers, and often no guarantee at all for residential customers) you may decide to insure against a failure to meet your peak bandwidth by purchasing more wholesale bandwidth.

The key is that when determining your pricing you need to look at the kind of QOS guarantee that you want to make vs. the expected peak and average usage for the typical customer.

As the internet changes and more people begin file sharing, expect the cost of supplying 'unlimited' bandwidth to increase. ISPs can maintain acceptable profit margins either by increasing the flat rate price or by charging by the kilobyte. The nice thing is, having access to filesharing drastically increases the value of the broadband connection, so there is no reason to believe that people wouldn't be perfectly willing to pay more. Successful ISPs will sell the increased value rather than impose a bandwidth penalty on their users. For customers who like the always on nature of broadband but don't really care about high bandwidth, the variable rate pricing will probably present a great alternative to today's flat-rate pricing.

Gotta watch those ISO's

[WhyDoubt]

If I gotta pay extra to get the latest distros either way I go, maybe I should buy them direct. At least then I would be supporting the distributors and not the cable company.

exceed the cap?

[GutBomb]

They plan to set a lower bandwidth cap for the flat rate and the raise the rates for bandwidth hogs who exceed the cap The wording is a little off. You can't exceed a bandwidth cap. you CAN exceed a monthy transfer limit unless they implement some hard limit. Some ISPs in Europe do this by giving you 2mbps download speed and a limited amount of transfer (like 1-5GB) and if you transfer more than that in your billing period they throttle the download speed down to 56kbps until the next billing period starts.

'Vote' with your cable subscription

[qurob]

They started to raise rates. They started giving lower quality of service, in both uptime, and stability. They wanted to charge $5.95 a month for modem rental. No more servers. No more static ip addresses. Blocking certain ports.

What did I do?

Turned it back in. $39.95 I have no problem paying, but $67.95, for crap?

No thanks

Re:'Vote' with your cable subscription

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I would like to agree with you, but when companies start losing business I don't think it is clear to them what it is that causes their customers to leave. I see postage-paid comment cards everywhere, but I can't say I have ever filled one out. Have you?

So they break up their customer base into target audiences and go with the stereotypical whims of the largest percentage. And who is that? Probably not someone who knows or cares what an FTP server is. Granted, these same people can and probably do use peer-to-peer file sharing services (sometimes without knowing it), but when that stops working they will just chalk it up to that bad computer voodoo.

I would say that the best thing you could do (realistically) is call and complain. The squeeky wheel really does get the grease. If you don't get the answers you want or the satisfaction you feel you deserve, ask to speak to a manager. Get the issue escalated until you get what you want or you decide to cancel your service. At least when you cancel they will know why, and several people within the company will have been involved.

As with politics, voting alone is not enough. You have to voice your opinions and be persistent. To most people, it's just not worth their time to do so, and so the minority suffers, if you can truly call it suffering.

Broadband Held Hostage to Corporate Greed

[SirChive]

The whole concept behind broadband was that we, the user, would have high bandwidth to do with as we like. But now this idea is completely lost.

Since the broadband provider in a given area is usually an effective monopoly they have figured out that they can jack prices on those who want and need broadband.

It's only incidental that this helps the RIAA. It's really about huge corporations lobbying the government in order to preserve their monopoly and then turning around and putting the screws to the end user.

The dream of cheap broadband for the masses has died on the altar of the holy corporation.

Re:Broadband Held Hostage to Corporate Greed

[PhxBlue]

The whole concept behind broadband was that we, the user, would have high bandwidth to do with as we like. But now this idea is completely lost.

No, the concept behind broadband was that they, the corporations, would make money from selling you high-speed internet access. When they no longer make money doing this, they will either stop providing the service altogether or will change their pricing plan so they make money again.

Cue the inevitable ...

[Mr_Silver]

... comments from people saying "My music collection has grown at the same rate, I only use it to sample, I listen to albums that aren't available from new bands" etc. etc.

The fact of the matter is people used Napster and are using these filesharing applications mainly because they get it for free.

Reducing a product to an insanely cheap price won't work, because you just can't beat free.

Hell, back in the old days Amiga games were 15 pounds and people still pirated them - and before that Spectrum games were 3 pounds and you still found people with 90 minute tapes with 3 odd games shoved on there.

I don't have magic solutions to keep everyone (including the RIAA happy) but I'm sure other people do. But I think that we should really admit what we've known all along that these filesharing allow you to get something for free. Yes, there are legitimate uses for it, but the fraction of those people who do use it like that are in the minority.

Kill the goose that is laying the golden egg?

[countach]

If file sharing is what users want, then maybe the cable companies should subsidise the "super sharers" who are absorbing a disproportionate amount of bandwidth, in order to keep the normal users happy and able to download the songs they want. If they succeed in blocking all the music sharing, maybe the ordinary users won't pay the big fees for cable and the cable companies lose.

Not even close

[adam613]

Cable companies dropping their customers by raising prices isn't going to hurt P2P that much. The xxAAs are up against a much bigger enemy: college students. Most large universities have dorm-room ethernet connections which are far superior to cable modem access (I've had both, so I know the difference). A big problem with cable is that the upload speed sucks. Universities don't have that problem. And dorm-room ethernet isn't going away or going up in price just because the RIAA says it should. So maybe the cable companies can cause a few people inconvenience, but they can't win the RIAA's war.

The media companies

[LennyDotCom]

The media companies that have beeen waiting for broadband to become popular so they can sell streaming entertainment might have a problem. How will people feel about paying to watch a movie online plus have to pay thier cable provider extra for each movie they watch?

The Fat Cats

[T3kno]

According to this Yahoo! page the CEO of Cox makes $1.5M a year, it does not list what the chairman makes but it's up there too. The sum total of all of the officers listed is $2.92 million dollars a year, and this is only for three officers. That comes out to $243,000 a month. So one way to think of it is that the big wigs want a raise :)

Hatchet job

[Alomex]

That story is the textbook definition of a hatchet job.

Cable ISPs could care less what you download. Bandwidth hogs are actually a net loss for ISPs, so they intend to charge those more. It is a mere accident that those hogs happen to be MP3 users.

For all the ISP cares, they could be SETI hogs, or pr0n hogs or remote X server/client hogs. So please drop the reference to the RIAA.

Ok, let's think this through

[torqer]

Their Hardcore MP3 downloader has downed 5000 songs in two years. That's just under 7 songs a day. 7 songs at 5 megs a peice for a 30 day month is 1050. Just barely a gig.

So we have cable company's going to put caps on their service. Fine. From all the information I have seen it seems to be tentatively set at 2-3 for the lowest class of service. Leaving a sizeable chunk for other stuff as well. Looks like this isn't going to stop p2p to me.

Warning: RANT below

[SkyLeach]

I am sick and tired of Cable companies whining about their costs and expenses while the rip new assholes into every single one of their subscribers.

1.) they lie constantly. They lied about my apartment building's contract being expired so that they could then refuse to refund me the money they charged me for installation.

2.) They lied and said that I would have DSL modem speeds. Well, I *would* have DSL speeds if I wasn't sharing my bandwidth with 10,000 other people downloading their pr0n all night long.

3.) they build exclusive deals with complexes preventing you from getting the much cheaper, more reliable and faster DSL service offered by the telco.

I'm sick of this bullshit government sponsered monopolistic rape-the-consumer stuff.

I say let's all move for congress to take all communicaitons hardware and make it an independant co-op agency. Make it illegal to have for-profit communications. It has become a public necessity and it should not be in the hands of greedy or controlling people.

makes me rethink my subscription

[Hooya]

well, apart from the convinience of having an always-on connection, i can't think of anything that i'd need to fork over ~$40/mo to access. i stopped 'file-sharing' a while ago and my connection from home is starting to collect dust. i'm starting to realize that there's nothing on the internet that compelling (mind you -- not talking about graphics/flash heavy sites that i avoid anyways) that would warrent such bandwidth. except for slashdot and a few other news sites that update frequently, a cron-ed wget to 'mirror' the site is a very viable solution for me. and that can happen over a dial-up in the middle of the night.

I think the cable providers are just shooting themselves in the foot. or at least the pinky-toe...

isn't napster what fueled the demand for broadband in the first place? as soon as the market shrinks even a little, economies of scale will take hold and the whole broadband thing will be in the shitter. 'twas good while it lasted i guess.

Good news, Bad News

[Dark Paladin]

*Note: This assumes that All You Can Eat Bandwidth goes away, and all Internet traffic becomes "metered" much like electricity, water, etc.

The Good News: Spam cuts down as companies realize they can't afford the bandwidth costs compared to the income.

The Bad News: There's still enough out there that you're charged an extra $5 just to download your mail. Oh, and that time you friend who uses Outlook got that virus? Yup - another $5.

The Good News: With bandwidth metering, idiot people who only only posts trolls stop since their hobby of annoying people for fun is now costing them.

The Bad News: The opinions of many are cut off as they weight their voice against their speech.

The Good News: Sites with way too many graphics, Flash animations, bangs and whistles become less popular, and become nice, clean, quick interfaces. True HTML 4.0 compliance becomes key since you can't just program client side "if browser==this display this".

The Bad News: So much for seeing new screenshots of Star Wars Episode III: Portman Naked and Petrified

The Good News: The Demo Disk industry truly takes off, since to be able to just download 200 - 300 MB demo's of games, software, etc costs too much. Game demos that used to be 400 MB in size are cut down to just 25 MB - just about downloadable.

The Bad News: Now you have to wait at least a week to try out Doom III: Demons in Love.

The Good News: The RIAA and MPAA shut the fuck up about how people are stealing music and videos. The whole CD protection bandwagon is killed off since there's no more fear that people will download music over the Internet, since that would cost as much as the CD anyway.

The Bad News: The whole idea of a legal MP3 music sale system for both established and new artists dies out. We are doomed to forever listen to Britney Spear's latest song, "Knock me around because I did it again".

Riiiight.

[EnVisiCrypt]

And if my bandwidth gets capped, I'll get my cable modem using neighbors to go in on a T1 with me. No big deal.

Piss on the cable companies if they want to cap my downloads. That's why I'm paying twice the dial-up rate. They're within their rights to raise prices, but I'm well within mine when I go out of my way to avoid them.

I can see it now:
"Earthlink 56K, up to twice as fast as your cable modem! Upgrade today!"

Re:Riiiight.

[MeNeXT]

Not as simple or as inexpensive as you might think. First you should price a T1 it will come out around $1,000 to $1,500 per month. Now how many neighbors would be willing to share the cost 10, 15, 20. For this point I will give you the benefit and say it's only 10. That would be 150kbps if you all decide to use it at the same time. Total bandwidth in a given month (assuming 24h operation) aprox: 440G that would represent 44G per user based on 24 hours. Now we all know that most will use it between 6:00pm when they get home from work and 12:00am midnight since most people work the next day and need to sleep. This is only 6h but I will give you 8h. That is 1/3 of the total bandwidth available to you wich gives you a total of 147G. divide this by 10 and all you have is 15G per user at 1/10th the speed of DSL at more than twice the cost.

Don't get me wrong I do not agree with the cable/telcos but unlimited bandwidth was a carrot that helped them sell the service. In most cases you probably sold more for them than all their marketing. Now they do NOT need your marketing any more they have the idiots who do not need hog speed Internet and who use less that 1G per month. Since you probably transfered (and took your friends with you)from a mom and pop ISP who did not have the $$$ to compete in the high speed game you no longer have them to turn to because they have gone belly up.

"You just cant fit 10 pounds of SH1T in a 5 pound bag." Now that the mom and pops have gone out of business cabel/telcos can no longer afford to give it away and are starting to charge a $$$$$ rate.

Re:T1?

[warpSpeed]

Depends on where you live, what you want, and the length of the contract. I would guess that you can get a "deal" on a T1 for about $600/mo and the price can go up to $2000/mo. It all depends on length of the contract and your provider. (check out bandwidth.com for pricing)

I have a hard time listening to the broadband whiners saysng that they are getting ripped off by the cable providers, etc. It costs money to support infrastructure, and to get connected to the top level providers. You want dedicated bandwidth that is always avaiable? Your gonna have to pay for it. If you are getting service from your cable /DSL provider and it works most of the time, you probably are getting your monies worth.

In the US T1s are a "tarrifed service" from the phone company. It is my understanding that they have to deliver the line/service if it is requested just about anywhere it is requested. Thats why they charge an arm and a leg for the local loop. They have to support the lines whereever it is installed.

Sounds reasonable to me... perhaps

[HiThere]

Bandwidth isn't free. It isn't expensive, really, but it sure isn't free. So flat rate, while desireable, probably isn't reasonable.

Problem: Monopolies.
You can never trust a monopoly to set a fair price.

Problem: Spam
The cost should be born by the party that initiates the transaction, not the party that receives it. But this can be quite difficult to determine for non-persistent protocols. Mail is easy, bill it back to the sender, and if you can't, you don't forward it. http, ftp, etc. are much more difficult. The user who initiates the transaction is the one who receives most of the data. The sender is essentially reactive. So the sender shouldn't be paying here. Without micropayments, I don't see any reasonable method to handle this.

Problem: privacy
If transactions are billed back to the sender of the communication, then it will be possible to trace who sent what message. This has obvious unpleasant implications for privacy of communication.

But bandwidth isn't free, and I object to paying to receive spam. Perhaps everyone needs two addresses. One where the sender pays for the transmission, and one where the receiver pay. You would use the receiver account for ftp, http, mailing lists, nttp, etc. (oops! that opens you up to spam!) and the sender for normal e-mail.

This needs careful design. Remember the inherent dangers of any single point of failure. (Look at what mailing lists could to the spam prevention of the separated addresses!)

bandwidth hogs?

[fmaxwell]

I'm tired of the self-righteous indignation of cable modem companies and even some of their subscribers regarding bandwidth usage. The cable companies made offers to everyone for "unlimited usage" and "T1 speeds" and "always on" connectivity.

Now that some small percentage of users are actually using the bandwidth that they were sold, the cable companies are demonizing them. They want to charge them extra, calling them "bandwidth hogs" and other such childish names. I don't see the cable companies scrambling to offer lower prices to people who just check e-mail occasionally and maybe move 750K a week through web surfing. I don't see them being called "bandwidth anorexics."

I'd have a lot more sympathy for the cable companies if they had been honest from the beginning, figured out what kind of bandwidth they could support, and spelled that out in the agreements.

They remind me of the airlines. Now the airlines have squeezed the seats so close together that they don't have adequate room for carry-ons, they portray passengers with "oversized" carry-on bags as self-centered buffoons -- despite the fact that many of these "oversized" bags met the airline's size requirements at the time that they were purchased.

Look at what it can be used for...

[stienman]

I find that a good portion of the websites I visit can't send me data faster than 1Mbps anyway, so the 2Mbps down I get is only used when more than one person is browsing in my house. It's nice when I find a good server that has an ISO or file I want with a fast connection - I can download Mozilla 1.0 (10MB) in two or three minutes, but the majority of people don't need or use it.

If they raise my price, then I'll shop around and likely find that it's still the best deal. However DSL and regular dial up will get a shot in the arm, at least for a little while. I may even be motivated to get a T1 (or more) to share with my condo neighbors.

Either way, they're still raking in a cash. AT&T says 1% of their users use 16% of their bandwidth - well that means that 50% of their users are paying $50/mo for the equivilant of dial up bandwidth. Cash in the bank.

What they're selling now is bandwidth, not transfer. If they cap my transfer to 5GB per month I'll expect them to leave the bandwidth where it is or higher - it'll only make them more money since I have more oportunity to go over - and those who transfer very little will feel that they are paying less for faster service. Happiness all around.

At any rate, there'll be options.

-Adam

Re:Subscribers should sue...

[Kamel Jockey]

Any lawyers interested in a nice big class action suit?

This reminds me of when a bunch of idiots sued Blockbuster video because they were too lazy to return their tapes on time. Each member of this class got about $18-$22 credited to their Blockbuster accounts, which essentially cost Blockbuster nothing.

Of course, if people do sue, the cable companies will then raise their rates to cover legal fees, court costs, settlement payouts, etc. In essence, the consumers would be suing "themselves." The only way to protest any kind of metering (if it happens, I highly doubt it will) is to simply cancel the service. Companies don't listen to anything but the almighty buck. You can whine and complain all you want but they won't care until you stop the gravy train.

eMail

[adamjaskie]

If MY connection gets capped, I will complain every time I get an unwanted email. If I spend 20kiB of my download limit downloading an unwanted email, I better get that 20kiB back, or the sender better PAY me for the bandwidth they used by sending me a message. If each email I get costs me money, it should be illegal for people to send me unsolicited emails. (Hey, unsolicited faxes are illegal IIRC)

Not too bright, are you?

[legLess]

I just turned WinMX on, gave high priority to all of the anime uploads, and then set GetRight to download as many episodes as possible. And it's not because I'm afraid that I'll lose my high bandwidth. It's because I feel like sending a nice little "fuck you" to Comcast while I still can.

That's like protesting a possible water rate hike by running your tap all day, or an electric rate hike by leaving your fridge open all day. Your sad little "protest" is cutting off your nose to spite your face, and doing demonstrable harm to everyone else who wants to use the resource. You're a short-sighted, anti-social idiot.

Good, but with some caveats

[gdyas]

Jesus people, cut the knee-jerking and think for a second. Having additional charges for those who exceed a certain bandwidth point CAN be a very good thing for most of us. Setting it in the context of "shutting down file swappers" though is a red herring. It comes down to paying for what you use, nothing more or less.

Look at the data. In the linked article, it cites AT&T's data that 1% of users use 16% of the service's bandwidth. Elsewhere, I've seen numbers like 5% of users consuming 30% of available bandwidth. Part of my monthly DSL/cable bill, and yours, goes to supporting these bandwidth hogs. If implemented correctly and regulated as a public utility like the phone / gas / electricity, having the mega-users pay for excess bandwidth can make it less expensive for casual users to access the internet with a fat pipe. At least in CA, electricity consumers like wasteful home owners or power-intensive companies that use more electricity than others pay more for it because, like broadband, it's a limited resource that they're using more of than others. Why should broadband be exempt from similar controls, if implemented and regulated reasonably?

What sort of guidelines should be in place? Primarily, there should be a mandated minimum amount of bandwidth one gets for the flat rate so that broadband ISPs can't turn it into something analogous to basic cable service -- I would expect regulation such that the per-capita amount of bandwidth used by around 95% of a service's users would set the minimum flat rate. Also, I'd advocate against speed limitations wherever possible - the purpose of broadband is the fat pipe, so why have it if you can't use it?

I believe such a pricing scheme can be implemented fairly and work as a benefit to both us and the continued implementation of broadband service. There just needs to be adequate rules to prevent the broadband carriers from using it to screw us over. But the people who see everything AT&T or SBC says as part of a sinister plot to double everyone's rates and halve their download speed are just a part of the bloviating tinfoil hat crowd, not really deserving to be listened to.

Exactly

[TechnoLust]

Actually, the cable companies are shooting themselves in the foot if they are trying to stop P2P. I know a lot of people that have broadband for that reason alone. Regardless of whether or not it is wrong or legal, it is pretty much the only "Killer App" for broadband right now.

Re:Subscribers should sue...

[Kamel Jockey]

Their not necessarily metering just charging you more for more bandwidth.

That's not a bad thing. Metering not only ensures cable companies keep their costs down (figuring the worst downloaders will either buy the cheapest service and download at slow speeds, or they will buy the most expensive service and pay their cost), it also ensures indirectly that people with smaller budgets can get access to broadband, since presumably these people would buy the cheapest service.

P2P a victim of it's own success

[cryptochrome]

Universities have to pay for that internet too, and you bet they're starting to cap student use. They just don't get as much press over it and do so in a slower, more beauracratic manner.

I am one of those people that shares gigabytes per day, primarily through the anime fansub scene. For those of you who may not follow it, two years ago, a 25 minute anime episode was about 50mb in size, and was in 320x240 realplayer format. Then broadband and DivX came along, and suddenly everything is DVD quality and over 200mb in size at 640x480. The catch was, despite more broadband actually getting it has become much harder. Downloading takes forever. Connections are quickly saturated. ISPs are capping like crazy. All the fansubbers and primary distributors are so obsessed with high quality that they failed to appreciate the tradeoffs.

The point it, the internet is neither unlimited nor free. There are costs, but we weren't directly paying for them, so we pretend they don't exist. The P2P networks were a manifestation like this. They don't even make a distinction between the guy next door and someone halfway across the world.

We're all going to have to get used to working with a lot less bandwidth, and paying for our fair share. Unlimited flat-rate broadband was untenable. It should have been this way from the beginning.

It's a matter of time before these guys crumble.

[mesozoic]

I realize this probably won't get read too much, since I'm around the 500th person to post, but here goes.

Cable companies don't compete with each other except at the national level. Anyone who wants to argue with this need only look at any place in the country, even the Northeast, and ask how many cable providers there really are for a given area--a handful at best.

When companies don't compete, they stagnate; there is less incentive to be efficient, to give good service, and as a whole the companies begin to do stupid things. Right now, these cable companies have caught their nuts in a vice grip because they overestimated how much they could spend on their networks without going in the hole; now they want to backtrack on flat-rate because they're not making money.

I think the most probable outcome is that in the move from flat-rate to pay-as-you-go, the cable companies screw up. They don't price competitively enough (because they want to recoup their losses) and they alienate a significant portion of their membership, who will turn to other things (like DSL) for connectivity, or just scrap the whole thing and move back to modems. This would happen in a relatively short period of time, and after a short while these companies will start having to either charge MORE for their service (and lose more customers) or sell off their assets. If that happens, you can expect to see a range of smaller cable companies pop up who are better prepared to handle their own service areas.

These companies have no real incentive to work well, and they're starting to pay for their own ineptitude. Providing they don't get hit first by legislation or by antitrust suits or by new technology, it's only a matter of time before they crumble, and when they do, it won't be long before market forces enable someone else to take the reins.

You believe in the myth of free trade, huh?

[dave-fu]

And when they cap down this sinister 1% that's using 16% of their bandwidth, charging exorbitant rates, how long will it be before they decide to clamp down on the next 5% that's using 30% of their bandwidth? And the next 10%? And the next x%?
Lovely divide and conquer trying to get us to buy the concept, but it's purely political. They know what they want to do (start building in unilateral price hikes to "meet a need") and they just had to find a laughable reason to do it.
Cable modems/DSL aren't gas or electricity, but thanks for the inept analogy anyway.
If the per-capita bandwidth was set at what the mean that 95% of the service's users use and speed caps were removed, I'd be the first to jump on that puppy. But since we're talking greedy monopolies here I've no such rosy vision of sensibility here.

An alternative for the cable co's: graveyard rates

[mbourgon]

Here's a thought: most of the people using the service do so from 6-10pm. Why not make some sort of access available only during the middle of the night, when no-one else uses it? I think it would be a win-win proposition if I tell my computer "download all this, be done by 6am" and walk off. The heavy use doesn't affect any of their normal customers, the bandwidth guys get their bandwidth, happy happy joy joy. Granted, I'd have to find some way to automate what I want to grab, but I could cope.

SOME FIGURES: What are you getting? Less than 56

[JohnDenver]

Basic Assumptions
-------------------
Web Page - 50K
Streaming Video - 1MB
MP3 Size - 3MB
Game - 30MB
Full Length Video - 600MB

1 GB Capped
Web Pages - 20972
Videos - 1024
MP3's - 341
Games - 34
Full Length Movies - 2

5 GB Capped
Web Pages - 104858
Videos - 5120
MP3's - 1707
Games - 171
Full Length Movies - 9

56K Dialup
Web Pages - 338688
Videos - 16538
MP3's - 5513
Games - 551
Full Length Movies - 28

Unlimited 384Kbps DSL
Web Pages - 2322432
Videos - 113400
MP3's - 37800
Games - 3780
Full Length Movies - 189