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The UK's 5-Minute 4G Data Cap

Posted by timothy on from the better-be-some-great-youtube dept.

Barence writes "The tariffs have been announced for Britain's first 4G network and they include a data cap that customers will break within five minutes. EE's high-speed data service will start from £36 a month — or £21 a month SIM-only — although the lowest package's 500MB download limit might put data-focused early adopters off. With EE claiming average network speeds of up to 12Mbits/sec, that means users could theoretically exceed their cap in just over five minutes of full-speed downloads — or a little over ten seconds a day. There are no unlimited data deals."

8 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Mobile bandwidth by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, guys... how's that whole "Let the market decide" argument working out for you? Capitalism works great for non-critical, non-infrastructure goods and services... but when it gets its hands on something everybody needs, it's gonna take you to the cleaners. Every single time.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Mobile bandwidth by Racemaniac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      because we've seen in the past that the "competitors" wouldn't ever dare to make deals to keep the prices artificially high

    2. Re:Mobile bandwidth by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Introduce competition.

      When a capitalist says this, it's a hand wave. They're dismissing cost of entry into the market. And let me explain to you why cost of entry matters in telecommunications (or for that matter, any infrastructure industry)... First, limited resources. You need access to land to run cables. If you're wireless, you need to negotiate for spectrum. Both are controlled by someone else. And the law says they don't have to sell to you at a competitive price -- or any price, for that matter. They choose whether you get in the door or not... and they may just choose to charge you an arm and a leg. Municipalities sign exclusive contracts saying only your competitor can run cables in that area for a period of 5, 10, 20, even 50 years. Why, you ask? Because those companies tell the municipality if they don't agree, they won't do business with them. "Too risky. Need to protect our investment," they say.

      And then there's spectrum. It's not all equal -- and how well your network does wirelessly still depends on finding land to put your towers up. Again, exclusive contracts -- they'll fuck you every time. You can't just ask J. Random home owner to host your tower.. he'd probably love the income, but the government has zoning regulations... oh, and exclusive contracts.

      In fact, in every case where capitalism has failed in an infrastructure capacity, it's for that reason: Exclusive contracts. Exclusive rights. Exclusive. Not inclusive. Inclusive means competition, and we don't want that. Exclusive means "protected investment"... and "protected investment" means... you, the consumer, are gonna pay a premium. Not them, not the guys who forced you down this road. You. Because their money is more special than other people's money. Their money has a government stamp of approval.

      So the next time you hear a capitalist say "induce competition," remind them that they're the ones that asked for the exclusive contracts. Afterall, it's good business, right? And for them... it is.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    3. Re:Mobile bandwidth by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Government/oligopoly partnerships working as designed. I see no problem here. If you keep complaining we'll just have to give you a little more indoctrination about how great "free markets" are. Of course you have never seen a real free market in your life, but that's besides the point.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    4. Re:Mobile bandwidth by alexgieg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So the next time you hear a capitalist say "induce competition," remind them that they're the ones that asked for the exclusive contracts. Afterall, it's good business, right? And for them... it is.

      Which is why capitalists neither vote nor support libertarian candidates, preferring to go with some of the big government parties, not caring much whether it's right or left-leaning. Libertarianism, with all that talk of deregulating markets, undoing legislation, removing trade barriers, eliminating subsidies etc. is quite scary for them. It's way, WAY easier to "make a deal" with a handful of high level bureaucrats and a few very friendly mega-corp CEOs, all working together to lock down the market into a de facto monopoly, than to deal directly with hundreds of millions of customers and thousands upon thousands of competitors.

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    5. Re:Mobile bandwidth by vux984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Rogers' best Internet plan is $130/mo. 250G of data.

      I doubt you need 250GB of data on your phone per month, or even per year. I'm not saying you couldn't use it. I'm saying you don't need it.

      You will exceed that in less than 5h at full speed.

      7.5 hrs by my calcs, but even that is unlikely. I doubt the average user would be able to exceed that cap in under 24hrs even if they tried as getting maximum theoretical peak speed for a sustained 250GB burst is just not going to happen.

      But that's beside the point. Mobile data caps on the top end plans is like those "free gas for a year" prizes. Its far more than enough gas for the average commuter in the average car.

      But some slashdotter will cry foul because in a Veyron at 250mph driving 24hrs a day he'll be out of his "free gas for a year" in under a week.

      Think of it as the networks are selling you 250GB/mo for $130, at the maximum speed they can deliver it, because that's the real deal on the table.

      If you don't find that to be good value then don't buy it, but I'm curious how you rationalize that you should somehow be entitled to "all you can possibly consume", especially seeing as they haven't promised you 'unlimited' anything.

  2. Re:ridiculous data caps by Synerg1y · · Score: 4, Insightful

    netflix

  3. Capitalism, or an un-critical consumer base? by concealment · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Capitalism works great for non-critical, non-infrastructure goods and services... but when it gets its hands on something everybody needs, it's gonna take you to the cleaners.

    While I'd love to blame an economic system for this, I feel the truth is more mundane: consumers are oblivious to what they are purchasing and are content to pay high prices for bad service.

    Imagine if even 25% of the new phone buyers took a look at these plans and said, "Wow, that's a terrible option. I'm going to roll back to my old Nokia flip-phone and wait for industry to get its act together."

    Yeah, well... they don't do that. They keep buying overpriced cable, ridiculous cell phone plans, Nickelback, lies by politicians, McRibs, etc.

    The problem is that the consumers will deny themselves nothing, and if it's a bad deal, they just pass the buck along to someone else.