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Data Cap Analysis Found Almost 200 ISPs Imposing Data Limits in the US (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: BroadbandNow, a broadband provider search site that gets referral fees from some ISPs, has more than 2,500 home internet providers in its database. BroadbandNow's team looked through the ISPs' websites to generate a list of those with data caps. The data cap information was "pulled directly from ISP websites," BroadbandNow Director of Content Jameson Zimmer told Ars. BroadbandNow, which is operated by a company called Microbrand Media, plans to keep tracking the data caps over time in order to examine trends, he said. The listed caps range from 3GB to 3TB per month. That 3GB cap seemed like it couldn't be accurate, so we called the ISP, a small phone company called NTCNet in Newport, New York. A person answering the phone confirmed that the company lists 3GB as its cap, but said it is not enforced and that customers' usage isn't monitored. The cap is essentially a placeholder in case the ISP needs to enforce data limits in the future. [...] BroadbandNow excluded mobile providers from its list of ISPs with data caps, since caps are nearly universal among cellular companies. The list of 196 providers with caps includes 89 offering fixed wireless service, 45 fiber ISPs, 35 DSL ISPs, 63 cable ISPs, and two satellite providers. Some offer Internet service using more than one technology. Some of the providers are tiny, with territories covering just 100 or a few hundred people.
First post.
It would be news if they were imposing the caps while saying they were uncapped.
Only some ISP's here even have an uncapped plan on their books.
Fran
:):):)
1st 1st Poster of the new Millennium!
You want more, pay for it.
> It would be news if they were imposing the caps while saying they were uncapped.
Which is redundant. You could just as easily say "ISPs which don't list what their limits are". All ISPs have limited resources, they can only transit a certain amount of data. Only the tiniest, with fewer than 1,000 customers, can't afford a decent network engineer who will prevent one customer from hogging all the resources.
among US ISPs. Nuff said.
All ISPs have limited resources, they can only transit a certain amount of data.
That isn't the point. Of course there is a physical limit to what they can provide. That is different from ARTIFICIALLY limiting data while advertising no data caps. That is dishonest and deceptive.
If I go to an "all-you-can-eat" buffet, I understand that they may run out of some items, and if it is crowded, the kitchen may not be able to keep up. That is different from them telling me "You've had enough, so pay extra if you want more food."
just because they correctly advertise something awful doesn't mean it's not awful. Providing the last mile service that cable companies do costs almost nothing (around $9/mo according to Comcast's SEC filing, though that figures a few years out of date so it might be up to a whopping $11-$12). The infrastructure was built with tax breaks and subsidies so there's no investment to recoup. It was paid for by our tax dollars and we basically just handed it over to a private company to profit from and don't question it.
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It is the US. You probably can get sued if you promise something and you do not comply. Lawyers do sometimes show common sense, but they tend to try to get any advantage from the law. As stupid as it sounds.
Cox imposed a 1 TB data cap in the Phoenix area now. After 1TB it's $10 per 50 GB over. Absolute bullshit. So I was forced to cancel my DTVNow streaming and subscribe to cable again after enjoying 3 years of not having cable because it costs the same amount and I don't have to worry about the cap as much. The only alternative is bad Century Link which is limited to 20 meg down DSL. Legal monopolies sure are great eh? Worse Google Fiber was coming to town until Cox successfully sued them and they didn't install.
Direct link to list - for others who despise triple-meta reporting: https://broadbandnow.com/internet-providers-with-data-caps
You cannot rate an ISP as a whole. For instance, CenturyLink DSL is capped, but CenturyLink Fiber is uncapped.
Why we don't care about net neutrality.
We lost that fight decades ago.
doesn't mean you can move the goalpoasts and get us moving again with your FUD.
Why does it matter as long as the data cap isn't hidden or abused (throttling implemented before the cap is reached)? I know my Comcast account has a 1TB limit, and that it will cost me extra for exceeding it. Moreover, they warn me when I'm approaching the limit. My phone service has a 6GB limit, after which you're throttled. They don't hide the fact. Unless the company is doing these things without telling the customer, why is it news?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
In appears that in some US states, there are laws prohibiting metered connections - and this makes no sense for me. How will any backbone network sell its service there? Only tier 1 networks with access to internet exchanges give out geniune unmetered connections
Even going back to the mid-90's I can't recall unmetered connections being the default assumption when you bought service for your line or for colocation. You might get a 10MBps ethernet into your cabinet, but it was always metered unless you specifically paid for unmetered. (well maybe not always, but once it was abused it was quickly throttled and you'd get a lovely notice about how 95th percentile billing worked.
It's clear the provision of internet as a whole in the US is "fixed" in the interests of the ISPs but what is this "fixed wireless service"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> Of course there is a physical limit to what they can provide
And an incompetent network engineer would allow one user to hog it all up hosting a tube site, as I said. Any network of appreciable size is going to have competent admins who set it up so that the distribution of resources is roughly "fair" - you don't have one guy hogging it, leaving little for everyone else.
There are lots of ways to configure "fair". One of the best strategies is to say every individual definitely gets their share at top speed, the heaviest users are free to use more as it's available. That is, if you use 3GB / month, and I use 300 GB, I'm not allowed to crowd you out. Instead, you get your fair share at max speed, my "excessive" packets are queued behind your "fair share" packets. (Unless other rules, such as protocol based rules, put them into a completely separate queue, possibly on a different type of router).
Obviously all companies, ISPs included, should be upfront with their customers. Unfortunately, there are 600+ page books about traffic policing, shaping and prioritization - the right rules for a network like Verizon's are super complex, maybe 60 pages of configuration in total, if not more. Communicating all that to the average customer is nearly impossible, so the marketing people have a challenge in how to be both completely upfront and understandable at the same time.
Rocks I get 350 down I cant wait to put the new docsis 3.1 on as even a 3.0 with 16 channels.
I hit it like Oliver North a shredder, just watch installers they will cut the cable to rooms with out a box.
I seen him do it but I thought he was just putting new ends on or I would have busted him in the mouth and took my jail time.
What is the wholesale price of a large pipe for just data transfer? And how does that compare to the price you pay per megabit at the cap? c on the $.
How will any backbone network sell its service there?
Because backhaul is almost entirely 1:1 in terms of data transit? Unless you're an edge player like an ISP, you 'up/down' ratio is going to be almost equal.
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Certainly the biggest ISPs tend to treat consumers poorly, and they implicitly "conspire"* with the politicians they have on their payroll. Which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with trying to explain traffic shaping and policing to the average consumer, such as yourself, who has no idea what traffic policing is, nor even such basic parameters as jitter.
When I buy an upstream network connection, there is a full page of specifications describing how "good" that connection is. Things like percentage flows may have jitter greater than 80ms? You need a lot of numbers to specify how "good" a connection is. Since you, and the average consumer, don't know what service levels you want and how to measure the different parameters, it's really impossible to explain to you how those parameters are affected by usage patterns in an optimized network. We can say THIS much to be HONEST "sometimes your connection will be 'faster', sometimes it will be 'slower'. It depends on a number of factors, including your total transfer usage for the period." One can also honestly say "we prioritize your first 5GB each month". Trying to explain it in much further detail is a tad pointless.