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Belgian ISP Claims One Customer Downloads 2.7TB
An anonymous reader writes with this envy-spawning excerpt: "While for most people the data limit is never reached, with media-rich websites becoming every more prevalent, and more media services going online (we're looking at you streaming video services), it won't be long before the average user is surpassing even the highest caps commonly imposed today. But how much data is it possible to download every month? And do the so-called data-hogs really burn through that much more data than everyone else? According to Belgian ISP Telenet, the answers are 'a lot' and 'yes, they can.'"
Not really. Imagine if electricity worked like internet data. i.e. You pay $400 a month and get unlimited usage.
Oh... stop right there.
Electricity is completely different from network capacity.
Electricity has to be generated, by consuming raw materials that produce an equivalent amount of electricity. Electricity is a finite scarce, consumable resource, generating it is expensive.
And once used it is gone, and must be replaced by using more resources to generate more electricity.
Usage of an ISP network, on the other hand, is not permanently consumed. When you download at 10 Megabits for 5 or 6 hours, the ISP does not permanently lose and have to replace anything, to give the next person 10 Megabits.
The moment you stop the download, all the transfer gets returned to the network.
More network bandwidth does not have to be generated by consuming more raw materials, for the next user. Network bandwidth is not a consumable good like electricity, as mentioned... it's more like a library book.
Adding network capacity is inexpensive, compared to generating electricity. It requires building more infrastructure, but once its built -- more work is not required as long as it can serve simultaneous data needs of the nodes on the network.
Bandwidth scarcity is about what nodes are trying to do simultaneously on the network, not about total bits transferred.
For example, if 10 million people want to watch a live video feed that starts at exactly 6:00 PM EST.
That causes a hell of a lot more network congestion, than if 20 million people want to download a Linux ISO over BitTorrent over a 5 day period.