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The Facts & Fiction of Bandwidth Caps
wjamesau writes "What's the deal with broadband caps, like Comcast's 250GB/month data transfer limit, which goes into effect tomorrow? Om Malik at GigaOM has a whitepaper laying out the facts and fiction about Comcast's short-sightedness (which other carriers are mimicking), and how it will impact the future Internet: 'Given the growth trend due to consumers' changes in content consumption, today's power users are tomorrow's average users. By 2012, the bill for data access is projected to be around $215 per month.' Ouch." The white paper is embedded at the link using Scribd; for a PDF version you'll have to give up an email address.
~Wow, I like soooo totally believe in the market too. Like, and leprechauns. Yeah, leprechauns, with that shiny pot of gold... or would that be fiber/wireless WAN/teleportation. ~
Christ on a pogo-stick buddy, believe all you want, the companys are still going to bend you over just like the rest of us. I had 5Mb/s service in 1999, and today I have, let me check my bill here, oh, wait, 5Mb/s. Max available where I live. Only way the market is going to solve anything is that the telcos are going to jack the prices up to serve data, which will drive the prices of big-bandwidth services like movies through the roof, therefore driving demand (and hence total bandwidth usage) down. The market will stabilize once only the rich can afford the "luxury" of using the 'net like we all do today. Either that or some as-yet-unheard-of competitor will come onto the scene and drive Comcast out of business with their shiny "new tech". Or something. Like I said...~leprechauns.
I've been laughing the whole time. This is basically the free entertainment crowd getting pissed that someone is going to slow them down at their buffet. Boo fucking hoo.