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High-Bandwidth Users Are Just Early Adopters
silverpig writes "Cisco has released a whitepaper on mobile data usage which has some interesting data in it. The top 1% of users consume 20% of the bandwidth, but that share is down from 30% previously. 'Regular' users are catching up as they watch more video. High-bandwidth users of today will be relatively average users by 2015, so network operators should look to those users for insight in designing their future networks."
That means I actually have to spend money on my network!
I thought those heavy users were all supposed to be pirates?....now they say they are early adopters, does this mean we're all going to turn into pirates? Best get out my peg leg and shine it up....
In Canada, we are facing a fight over Usage-Based-Billing, and whether the federal government can effectively force it on ISPs. The idea isn't actually terrible per se, but the way they're trying to implement it certainly is.
One thing that has come up time and time again is that it's to protect the consumer from the excess of the 1% of extreme consumers. They're often implicitly labelled as pirates by the ISPs, but in fact are the vanguard.
An excellent article in the Globe and Mail had this to say on the matter:
The knowledge that penalties await heavy Internet usage does something quite terrible: discourage desirable behaviour. Most of Bell’s arguments for treating consumers as wrongdoers rely on the villainization of “bandwidth hogs” who use up everyone else’s bandwidth and generally bring misery to the land. But there are better words for big users of the Internet: “pioneers” and “innovators.” A nation that spends its time worrying about bandwidth caps is not a nation that leads.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The cell phone companies are way ahead of the curve on this one. They've been working on ways to screw us over for years now... and the more you know about making the sausage (from sites like HoFo), the more you know how bad you're getting it. Especially in the US.
Just a few days ago, I got a text message from T-Mobile saying, "Texas Recovery Fee now included on monthly bill." Oh for crying out loud. Does the grocery store charge me a "Municipal Services Recovery Fee" to get back the cost of their food service license? Even the tire store doesn't charge the "tire disposal fee" if I tell them to load 'em up in the back seat. I'd drop 'em in a minute if it weren't for two things: 1) Everyone else is just as bad or worse, and 2) T-Mo makes it easy and *cheaper* to stay *out* of a contract, which actually makes me *more* likely to stay.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
You're talking about the same companies that knew IPv4 addresses were rapidly depleting for years and are just now taking steps to implement IPv6. Their main concern is minimizing expenses while maximizing profit. The less your average user uses, the more users they can squeeze onto the same pipe. I'm pretty sure most ISPs would love it if everyone bought an $80 data plan and only used it to check their email. There's no room for long term planning when you have shareholders that expect constant short term growth.
Just call them "bandwidth hogs," oversell your capacity, and blame your connectivity problems on the people using most of the flow they paid for.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!