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Netflix Pushes FCC To Crack Down On Data Caps (dslreports.com)
Netflix hates data caps. The on-demand movies and TV shows service has asked the US Federal Communications Commission to declare that home internet data caps are unreasonable and that they limit customers' ability to watch online video. From an article on DSLReports:Netflix has long has an adversarial relationship with ISPs, and often for good reason. Usage caps on fixed-line networks are specifically designed to protect ISP TV revenues from Netflix competition, allowing an ISP to both complicate and generate additional profit off of the shift away from legacy TV. "Data caps (especially low data caps) and usage based pricing ("UBP") discourage a consumer's consumption of broadband, and may impede the ability of some households to watch Internet television in a manner and amount that they would like," said Netflix in a new filing with the FCC. "For this reason, the Commission should hold that data caps on fixed Âline networks ÂÂand low data caps on mobile networksÂÂ may unreasonably limit Internet television viewing and are inconsistent with Section 706." Netflix's filing comes as ISP's increasingly turn to broadband usage caps to take advantage of the lack of broadband competition in many markets. Fearing FCC crackdown both Comcast and AT&T raised their caps to one terabyte, though many ISPs still cap usage at much-lower allotments. High, low, or somewhere in between, Netflix highlights that there is no good reason to implement caps on well-managed fixed-line networks, despite a decade of ISPs trying to justify the price gouging.
I hate the data cap too, but I don't like the lack of control I have over stream quality - on most devices it looks like it just does some automatic detection.
I much prefer the control in, say, YouTube where I can specify the resolution quality. I'd also like to be able to optimize the stream for audio or prefer certain programs in SD. The kids don't need to watch Pokemon in 4K!
g=
Their official policy is that you have to pay them for TV no matter what. Either you subscribe to TV, or your internet connection is capped, and you will pay them for TV anyway in the form of overages.
Seemed like a pretty good plan "Lets punish consumers and make them pay for our ill-conceived acquisition of Direct TV"
Gee, I wonder why they are losing subscribers.
This will be a continuing problem so long as the people who own the infrastructure also sell services over it.
They almost got this right with the ILEC/CLEC split with DSL. The only problem is that they let the ILEC sell services over the infrastructure they owned.
Don't let the guys who own the wires sell any services and this problem will fix itself.
And also the ability to delay or offload content in cache. For example, if your bandwidth is currently funky (as is typical with oligopoly ISP's), then set the play to notify you when the download is complete or the buffer reaches a certain percent complete. A fuller menu would look something like:
Bandwidth and Delay Options:
Quality (higher quality may slow download):
[x] Automatic
[_] High-Definition [rate value here]
[_] Medium [rate value here]
[_] Low [rate value here]
[_] Etc.
Delayed Playback:
[x] Don't play until buffer has ____ seconds of video [with a default but editable number]
[_] Don't play until entire video is cached on your computer, Auto-Play
[_] Don't play until entire video is cached on your computer, Pop-Up-Notification
[_] Don't play until entire video is cached on your computer, No notification (click video window to play when "Ready" indicated)
But companies can argue these kind of options are too confusing to most consumers. Maybe a good UI designer could make them friendlier...
Table-ized A.I.
Adjustable quality would be a nice user control to have, if you're paying for bandwidth, you should be able to decide how much bandwidth to use on what downloads.
If people only knew how little it costs per household for ISPs to provide cable TV and internet service! While no real figures are published, by some estimates it costs most ISPs less than $15.00 a month per household to provide both broadband Internet and cable TV, in some cases less than half of that figure.
Not only should the FCC remove all data caps, prices for broadband Internet service, and cable TV should be capped at $29.95 per month each. Our taxes have paid for the infrastructure for these services, yet we are massively price gouged for these services. One reason that this price gouging goes on is that ISPs have managed to stifle any hint of competition in most locations in the U.S., even buying draconian laws against cities that wish to provide their citizens with reasonably prices broadband Internet and Cable TV services.
I would also like to see the FCC mandate that as long as costumers are paying for their cable TV service, it should be commercial free, as we were promised at the very beginning of cable TV roll-outs!
Given that Comcast enjoys government granted monopolies in its markets, it seems reasonable for the government to require them to remove data caps.
Of course, the better approach would be to tell Comcast fine, charge whatever you like, but we're going to open all of your markets to competition.
Stop selling unlimited stuff as unlimited. The onus is ENTIRELY on the company making such claims to back them up.
Put up or shut up.
Or, in the immortal words of Jim Carey "HEY ASSHOLE, STOP BREAKING THE LAW!"
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
You're the sort of fat fuck who thinks an "all you cat eat" buffet means you can just stuff everything in your mouth.
Pretty much EVERY service is priced on the basis that not everyone will use it in the most costly way.
Just because you're incapable of understanding a complex society that's based on implicit understanding and values rather than strictly written rules, it doesn't mean most human beings can't manage fine in it.
Don't use your disability as a reason to fuck things up for others.
"Unlimited" should have the very simple meaning of 24/7/3600 usage of the bandwidth you are purchasing as a customer of a given ISP. It should be impossible then to hit the datacap since your modem should not be able to exceed such usage.
"Limited" can be any fraction of that, e.g a 50 Mbps service with 600GB data cap would be "Limited" not "Unlimited" since even a 1 Mbps connection could exceed 1 TB of data per month.
IOW, Truth In Advertising.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Personally, if I'm sold a 30Mbps/5Mbps cable/dsl connection, I expect to be able to saturate that channel 24/7 if I want to. ISPs should provision accordingly.
You wouldn't be able to afford it if they did. A dedicated full-time 30/5 line to the border gateway would cost more than you want to pay. A line that you share with 100 other people is much cheaper.
The caps are not put in place by ISPs to make people pay for TV as the summary claims. (Why would an ISP that has no video services at all have caps if that were truly the reason? What is T-Mobile's TV service?) They're put in place to keep people who think they ought to have 100% fulltime use of a shared resource from keeping other users from getting what they are paying for.
Oligopolies suffer from similar problems as "big gov't": not enough competition to give them incentive and to give consumers real choices. They historically almost always take advantage of insufficient competition to screw customers: Railroads, oil, cars, computers (IBM, MS), CPU's, telecoms, etc. have shown mass dickery under oligopolies or monopolies.
If there were say 7 or more realistic ISP choices per typical customer, THEN competition could work its magic, Adam-Smith-style.
The biggest road-block to more competition in my opinion is the "last mile problem". It's not realistic nor efficient for every competitor to run wires to every potential customer. It's the main reason Google is dropping out in many areas.
If a gov't utility could set up "last mile" wiring, then multiple ISP's would only have to hook up to centralized routing nodes, not to each house. It's then just a switch. This could invite the competition needed to end most ISP BS such that regulators wouldn't have to get involved nearly as much.
The right conditions have to be in place for capitalism to work right.
Table-ized A.I.
My kids don't care when I drop youtube down to 240 resolution,
Someone calls child care services at once!
Full agreement.
That's not true — "natural monopoly" is a myth. But do find citations supporting your assertion.
Another unsubstantiated claim. Google Fiber was meant to run all of the "last miles" from the get-go — it was not something they realized they have to do later. I explain their lack of wide-spread success by the above-referenced regulation of local governments, but you are welcome to offer citations supporting your assertion(s). Meanwhile, I offer this map as evidence supporting my assertion. They are already offered in the "redneck" parts of the country like Salt Lake City, Charlotte, and Kansas City, while the corrupt locales like Chicago — despite having many more thickly-settled (and thus easy-to-wire) would-be customers — are merely "being explored".
Then instead of the poorly-competing oligopoly, we'll have a bona-fide monopoly — with government policing the Internet traffic. Today I can switch from FiOS to Comcast in a matter of days should I decide to. Bringing about a change to the government-owned service will require months and years of raising awareness and electioneering.
Absence of wrong conditions is sufficient.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I kinda wish it was like the old days of dialup.
You have two bills.
1 for the Infrastructure (Telephone Line)
1 for your ISP
The problem now is they are both the same... I should be able to say choose from Cable/Satellite/Cell/Fiber Optic. Pay x per month for the infrastructure which has its fixed peak speeds.
Then you choose your ISP, who pays so much for caps or no caps, IP Address... Email and any other feature you want and don't want.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Bullshit.
They don't even want to OFFER it. Instead they rather play word games and sell idiots on the idea of 'unlimited'.
Its either unlimited or its not. If its not DON'T CALL IT UNLIMITED.
Would you let a car mfg'er claim your new car has 400horsepower when it has a fucking 30cc lawnmower engine in it? No. Because its call truth in advertising.
It may not have to. But it will — because that's the nature of government.
For example, AT&T "NSA closet" will seem quaint, once all traffic passes government-owned wires. Censoring content crossing government-owned equipment will also become much easier — seriously, would somebody, please, think of the children?! And, yeah, encryption is legal, but, if you use it on publicly-owned wires, the government must be able to decrypt it. And only government-approved (and registered) equipment can be thus connected too. Hasn't the sorry story of public roads taught you anything? Do you think, Internet-access license and uniquely-identifying IDs for your computer(s) will be far behind?
And, of course, instead of violating Terms of Service, (ab)users will be violating laws — feds are already seeking to "curb trolling", owning the last mile to every house will allow them to act on that urge.
No, thanks.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I own an ISP (WISP) that is virtually the only option outside of the two large incumbent carriers, Centrylink and Comast that residential users have. The other CLECs mainly, if not exclusively, sell commercial service. We have seen in the last 5 years demand for bandwidth increase nearly 500% mostly due to video streaming. The cost of the fiber and equipment has come down to be sure, but no where near 500%. So far we have been able to keep providing an essentially unlimited service. However if current trends continue, I'm not sure for how much longer.
The caps are not put in place by ISPs to make people pay for TV as the summary claims. (Why would an ISP that has no video services at all have caps if that were truly the reason? What is T-Mobile's TV service?) They're put in place to keep people who think they ought to have 100% fulltime use of a shared resource from keeping other users from getting what they are paying for.
So this is just about network management?
Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity
http://arstechnica.com/busines...
Another Broadband CEO Admits: Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Capacity
https://consumerist.com/2016/0...
Leaked Comcast memo reportedly admits data caps aren't about improving network performance
http://www.theverge.com/smart-...
Comcast Admits Broadband Usage Caps Are A Cash Grab, Not An Engineering Necessity
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...