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No Such Thing As 'Unlimited' Data (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: According to an article at Wired, the era of 'unlimited' data services is coming to an end. Carriers don't give them out anymore unless they're hobbled, and they're even increasing the prices of grandfathered plans. Comcast's data caps are spreading, and Time Warner has been testing them for years as well. It's not even just about internet access — Microsoft recently decided to eliminate its unlimited cloud storage plan. The big question now is: were these companies cynical, or just naive? We have no way of evaluating their claims that a small number of users who abused the system caused it to be unprofitable for them. (A recent leaked memo from Comcast suggests it's about extracting more money, rather than network congestion.) But it's certainly true that limited plans make costs and revenue much easier to predict. Another question: were we, as consumers, naive in expecting these plans to last? As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Unlimited data plans clearly won't work too well if everybody uses huge amounts. So did we let ourselves get suckered by clever marketing? T-Mobile plans may also be dropping unlimited data in 2016.
The real question is why someone could ever pay a flat fee for an infinite resource. It was obvious that could never last.
The people that scream the loudest about it, are of course the ones abusing the system and hastening its demise...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With shrinking cable television viewership, and the talk of making internet a utility, of course many of these companies want to find new ways to make money. The customers don't really get a choice - not enough people can get up and move to actually hurt many of these companies in any significant fashion. Look at cell phone plans. The real question is if there is collusion in the industry... To be certain: consumers don't get a real choice when the players are so few and so big.
Yes there is. Your pipe has a max speed. The theoretical maximum amount of data you could use by saturating your pipe 24x7 should be considered unlimited. Nothing less.
Only idiots would think data caps will work, with 4K videos starting to be streamed and 8K not far behind, people who think it's just those damn abusers are kidding themselves. Networks technology needs to grow faster and with much bigger bandwidth.
We have no way of evaluating their claims
Not directly, anyway. We can still take an indirect approach, though, for example by looking at how many ISPs have been gobbled up and merged into each other over the last few years, at what point were there only a handful of real options left, when these caps started appearing, and so on. It also might help to remember that we've already been through this with the cell phone providers and their price gouging/fixing. Many of those providers are now ISPs as well, or have merged with them. Typically, once there isn't any real competition, prices start to go up. So to answer the question: Everybody should have seen this coming once all the mergers and acquisitions got going full force.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Example, calls within the US. I have not paid "long distance" charges in years. On the other hand, everyone accepts the idea of paying for electricity at different tiers of usage. Of course, (at least where I live) there is a lot of competition between middle men (the actual producers are still heavily regulated). I would predict that there would be a lot less resistance to tiered internet usage IF we had true competition.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
That's what it would be called in any other retail environment, and it's illegal. The providers called it unlimited and therefore it should be unlimited. It's not the fault of the consumer for taking them at their advertised word.
I have no idea how carriers and customers are going to agree on sane pricing. We're right back to the AT&T model of very expensive metered connections. I'm old enough to remember when in-state long distance phone calls were billed at 15+ cents a minute. With HD video streams eating more and more bandwidth as quality improves, typical
unmetered monthly allotments will get used up after a couple of streaming sessions. There's that, plus Facebook constantly pulls data in the background, as do messaging apps, as does the automatic cloud backup mechanism on iOS. I predict the carriers will keep billing at current rates until enough people start complaining, then we'll go through another anti-trust process.
That said, there's parallels in the software/infrastructure world. Adobe knows they have a lock on professional creative applications (Photoshop, Premiere, etc.) and decided to force people to pay the Creative Cloud bill forever to use them rather than pay once for a license. Microsoft is headed that way too; Windows 10 may be free, but options for perpetually licensing server software are getting harder to justify to the MBAs. The next step is convincing everyone to just run their stuff in Azure for $XXXX per month rather than forking over that same amount one time. Both situations are only coming around again because consumers are receptive to them, or because they have no other choice.
True, unlimited data is a myth but there are a lot of things that could be done to help this. By consolidating everything online the carriers have ensured they are in a position to make it as scarce a resource as possible to drive value. By introducing the option to cache content offline through intelligent AI and taking advantage of off-peak times we could make better use of the limited resources. I would have no problem 'DVR'ing my Netflix and YouTube content so that I can save my bandwidth for data that is truly real-time which would average out the usage of networks today. Just like electricity, there is a huge amount of unused capacity during offpeak hours that we could put to good use with the ever declining price of storage.
INB4 not applicable because FCC. The airlines tried claiming this due to their status as regulated by the FAA. They got slapped down hard by the courts and must comply with state regs.
Have gnu, will travel.
We have no way of evaluating their claims that a small number of users who abused the system caused it to be unprofitable for them.
Anecdote incoming, but when I helped out on college IT it was fairly consistent that the top 20% of users (well, network ports) were responsible for 80-90% of the usage. And further the top 2% (which was two dozen or so) were responsible for about 50-60% of the usage. This was pretty consistently the same few ports too -- not just that at any point the usage was skewed but that over time those users were using a ton. Since we didn't have a huge pipe to the internet, those super-users would, from time to time, really degrade everyone else's connection. That lead to the idea that we could mitigate this situation by a fair and objective set of rules:
(1) No data "caps" -- we are not interested in aggregating data over long periods of time
(2) A byte is a byte -- we are not interested in packet inspection, only counts
(3) Traffic shaping only kicks in during actual congestion -- we are not interested in doing anything until service is actually degraded
What we ended up doing was that when the pipe to the internet was 75% full or more, any user that over the last 15 minutes was in the top 20% of traffic and consuming more than 5x the average use for that time period would get shunted into the lowest QoS bucket. This classification continued until either the usage dropped or (most likely) the outbound pipe was no longer congested.
What the fuck does this have to do with Comcast? Well, as much as I hate them I do have to admit that there is a plausible case for a small fraction of users degrading service for the rest of their paying customers (or necessitating costly upgrades that will be passed along to everyone). And they have implemented their congestion control in the most indefensible way I can imagine -- monthly caps cannot possibly solve the issue of overloading on short time-scales. So I'm left with the idea that, instead of sperging about "unlimited", the tech community actually try to be productive in endorsing a fair set of guidelines (maybe not at all like those above!) on how to manage networks to ensure that a minority of users don't degrade service for everyone. Not that Comcast doesn't deserve sperging of course ...
Only idiots would think data caps will work,
I'm pretty sure you have to be an idiot (or simply illogical) to equate "infinite" with "large".
If people need to stream 4K video frequently than data plans that make sense for that use will naturally spring into being. Until that time people on the very bleeding edge (as 4K video broadcasting still is) will rightfully have to pay for the far greater than average bandwidth they use, not ride on the backs of the average user for their own gain.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Normal people understand that an 'unlimited' offer of a resource that is actually both limited and communal should not be unreasonably monopolized.
Normal people understand "unlimited" to actually mean "unlimited" when used to promote the service. If it isn't unlimited it should not be advertised as such. But these companies very clearly said that you would have "unlimited" bandwidth so any changes after the fact means that they lied. That is called bait and switch among other things.
If you are the guy that goes downstairs and takes the entire 'continental breakfast' plate of danish up to your hotel room your abusing the fact that the hotel didn't place a 'limit' on the number of danish you could have.
Did the hotel advertise the number of danishes as "unlimited"? My guess is that they did nothing of the sort. They merely said a free breakfast was available, not that you could take the entire buffet back to your room.
If you walk into a chinese buffet for brunch at 11am, plunk down your $8 for all you can eat, and then promptly take the entire tray of sweet and sour chicken balls depriving everyone else of any.
It's all you can EAT. Not all you can take. You seem to be fuzzy on the difference. Stomachs have a finite capacity and restaurants know this. (Well, unless you are the late John Pinette)
Every other country is offering unlimited plans. Cheaper unlimited plans in Australia and New Zealand are now the norm.
Here's the thing, we're not talking about a resource. There is not finite supply of water pouring into your house. We're talking about bandwidth. We're talking about electrons that are always flowing down the wire. There is no real resource being consumed by using more data.
During non-peak times when your switches are not at capacity, it doesn't really take more electricity to process more data (not really; not measurably). During peak times, it may be more difficult to offer quality of service because everyone is streaming something (even if it's just a video). Your total cost is in the infrastructure for standard data at peak.
It's not a resource like power or water. That electricity is always running over those wires. The more powerful switches you need are a sunk cost!
Bandwidth is "a finite resource", but it's only scarce when it is congested. Yet many ISPs run the meter the same during uncongested periods, such as early mornings local time, as during congested periods.
A) They don't understand tha
I said *WHEN* they understand that. At a brunch buffet they do understand it; I agree most still don't understand it for internet access.
B) even if true it doesn't matter. If a company offers something in unlimited amounts in means UNLIMITED
Yes and so what? They are no longer going to offer that.
If they made a bad deal then that is their fault and not the customer's problem.
Yes and? The customer's only problem is that telco is not renewing this offer next month. And because you don't have an extended contract with them, they don't have to provide that service next month. The caps aren't "retroactive". Each month, you have a new agreement. The consumer is free to cancel the service each month. SO IS THE PROVIDER.
They DID change the terms.
You got your unlimited bandwidth last month.
Unless you have a contract that extends into the future, neither of you have any significant obligation to each other going forwards.
They lured you in with one offer and then changed the offer.
No. They lured you in with one offer, fulfilled it, and THEN changed the offer for the future. That is not bait and switch.
By definition it is impossible to abuse UNLIMITED access by utilizing said access
The definition in question is not 'unlimited' we agree on what that means. The definition in question is that of 'abuse'. And yes, I absolutely am arguing that you can 'abuse' something that was offered without limit.
A baby sitter invited to help herself to what's in the kitchen if she wants a snack is abusing that offer if she eats everything in the house. "Abuse" doesn't mean she exceeded the offer (as you said, she can't technically exceed an unlimited offer.)
The word "Abuse" means that she exceeded the spirit and intention of the offer., which is absolutely what was done.
If you offer me unlimited bandwidth at a particular speed, you should not be surprised if I utilize it to the fullest extent possible.
I'm not surprised in the least.
However, you should not be surprised that the telco is electing to invoke its option to discontinuing your current service.