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Your 4K Netflix Streaming Is On a Collision Course With Your ISP's Data Caps (vice.com)
Household bandwidth consumption is soaring thanks to video streaming, new data suggests, and American consumers are about to run face-first into broadband usage limits and overage fees that critics say are unnecessary and anti-competitive. Motherboard reports: Cisco's 2018 Visual Networking Index (VNI) -- an annual study that tracks overall internet bandwidth consumption to identify future trends -- predicts that global IP traffic is expected to reach 396 exabytes per month by 2022. Cisco's report claims that's more traffic than has crossed global networks throughout the entire history of the internet thus far. The majority of this data growth is video; Cisco found that 75 percent of global internet traffic was video last year, up from 63 percent just two years earlier. Cisco says this number could climb to 82 percent in 2022, with 22 percent of overall video consumption coming from bandwidth-intensive 4K streaming. The problem: As monthly household bandwidth consumption soars courtesy of 4K Netflix streaming and other new services, many broadband users are likely to run into usage caps and overage fees that jack up their monthly rates. The report mentions Comcast imposes a terabyte usage cap on all of its service areas except the Northeast, but users can pay an additional $50 per month to avoid such limits.
There isn't anything on television, that's worth the bandwith of 4K... Just another way to rip off viewers with data caps.
Break up Comcast vzw att etc
"But Net Neutrality is about treating all services equal, it should stop this!" some will say... ignoring these very same caps came in during the NN era.
It's quite simple. The likes of Comcast being unable to throttle Netflix/etc directly, opts to put an artificial cap on it's users... then makes sure that some of their services do not eat into that cap... like any kind of On Demand streaming via an X1 console. Sure, that traffic doesn't cross the public internet, but uses the exact same DOCSIS tech in your cable modem which is capped.
Why pay for/use external services when your friendly ISP has all you could ever want/need?
One of these weeks/months I need to sit down with an iPad, streaming over the internet, only Comcast content using their app, but my cable modem... as I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't count against the cap either.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Spectrum ain't all that, but at least they've been pretty reliable in my area, charge a flat monthly rate, and don't have a cap :)
When data caps were introduced, we all just grumbled and tolerated it because there was nothing we could do.
When net neutrality was revoked, we all just grumbled and tolerated it because there was nothing we could do.
You have one provider for your house. What are you going to do?
Yes, you'll just grumble and then get the extra data plan that has 2TB cap instead of 1TB cap for $25 more. There will be also the $50 more 5TB cap plan that is such a deal and $75 10TB cap. But, a promotion will get you the 5TB plan for $20 more per month for 6 months.
We won't do anything about it but pay more.
Then stop autoplaying full screen videos on start.
I must be getting old, because most content I watch is just fine in SD or sometimes HD for movies. Still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about 4K? Is it really worth it? Or just bragging rights for anal people who convince themselves its important.
Given that my ISP is Google (actually, WebPass, which is now owned by Google Fiber): No, it's not.
(But I don't have a 4K streaming box, or any need, given I don't have a 4K TV given that you can't tell the difference at normal seating difference and I couldn't get a 4K plasma screen if I wanted to...)
But my 1080P dumb-ass TV seems to be terribly out of date now.
Anybody know of any good 55-65 inch dumb 4K TVs ?
Oh, did I mention Inexpensive? I can always not allow WIFI access to a "smart" TV, but why pay for something that is spying on me, and obsolescent before it's out of the box?
Re "What are you going to do?"
Invoke some innovation and competition.
Ask the one provider for more data.
Ask the provider to allow different ISP on their network so someone can provide the data services needed.
Wait and see if caps change, if new ISP enter the local telco market.
Find local government and tell them that the "one provider" is not giving the service needed. That different ISP that could provide the needed service are not allowed to enter the area.
That "one provider" was to give the community the services it needed in return for a monopoly. The "one provider" no longer offers the services needed to keep their monopoly protection. They lost their granted monopoly protection by not keeping up with products and services.
Build community broadband.
Bring in many new competitive ISP who can offer all the different services needed over community broadband.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What are you going to do?
Develop a better video format which can deliver the same image quality at a lower bitrate. The AV1 encoder is still slow but it's improving. Dav1d is a fast decoder implementation.
Netflix sees AV1 as its primary next-gen video format.
I don't have any caps, because I'm not some Amerimutt 3rd worlder.
How many refugees from the U.S. broadband regime is your home country willing to absorb?
.. has no caps.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Even can AV1 can halve the bitrate for a given distortion level relative to VP8 and AVC, that just makes Comcast's 1 GB cap behave as a 2 GB cap would have on the old codec. It doesn't eliminate the problem once the household's usage rises to the new cap, such as replacing full HD (1080p) displays with 4K displays and using the hand-me-downs to replace 480i or 720p displays. Nor does it help with legacy streaming receiver appliances that do not include an AV1 decoder in silicon.
Seriously, if an ISP can not get money directly from sources via manipulating the streams and forcing it, then they will cap it and simply get money from the receiving end. One way or another, these companies that were granted monopolies, will work hard to buy CONgress critters and manipulate the situation.
This is why, we need to push local govs to install fiber as utilities and/or count on starlink/1-web to destroy these monopolies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
look. I am happy to see net neutrality disappear. Why? Because the REAL issue is not net neutrality, but the monopolies that we have granted and to the wrong groups. In less than 3 years, there will be 2 massive sats network offering internet. With the competition between those 2 AND on the ground, it should push down price and remove caps.
BUT, at the same time, we need to push local gov to install fiber as a utility. The provides real competition and increased speeds.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What 3rd world backwater....oh....it is the US....I see. In the modern world, you get somewhere between 100MBit and 1GBit symmetrical at a reasonable price these days, no caps.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No problem. I don't have a 4K monitor or NetFizz
I can get an unlimited data plan on my phone through my current provider, Cricket, for about $50/mo. If I want the ability to tether or hot-spot, it's an extra $10/month & I suddenly have a cap of 9 GB/mo. With newer phones, I can stream unlimited 4K video, as long as I keep it on the phone. If I want the ability to tether my laptop or tablet to the phone, I've suddenly got an expensive data cap. What gives?
It's just a matter of time before Netflix, Google, Amazon, Vudu and all these other companies spin up a new ISP and send it out into the world to compete with Comcast. Existing ISPs will do themselves in. As long as you grease the politicians hands at the local level, they'll happily give you a municipal franchise and let you run all the fiber you want.
I had to listen to American nazis cheer
Nom the cheers you heard were from fans of freedom.
The freedom for ISP's to raise the bandwidth caps, because they have the freedom to control traffic for some forms of network traffic (like torrents).
Just how EXACTLY would network neutrality have done anything but made data caps even worse?
Please response using a sentence that uses the word "nazi" less that fourteen times.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
4kbps works well.
I have Comcast Gigabit, in some states it is unlimited - but in 27 states it falls under the Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan
However if you really need more than a TB in a month, they also let you pay $50 more (per month) for unlimited data (how generous! [yes that was a sarcasm]].
I'm about at the same level as you, I use around 500GB/month, and currently do no 4K streaming. I'm not sure it would bring me over the 1TB limit anyway though as I don't watch a ton of stuff, probably a handful of things would be 4K.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All pricing should be based on bandwidth, nothing else. Content is nobody's business.
That is exactly what my Comcast bill is based on - I have gigabit Internet, I pay for a certain amount of bandwidth. It doesn't matter where I go.
Now some phone companies are a little trickier, but not much - T-Mobile is also based on bandwidth choices I have made, and I can visit any site. But I also have the option to opt-in to a service that feeds me a max bit-rate feed for video. which does not count against my data cap. But that does not change the fact that I am paying for up to a certain amount of bandwidth - in some cases they simply opt to allow somewhat more for specific kinds of traffic (note: also not destination limited as any company or person can offer these lower bitrate feeds).
Why do you feel that is not what pricing is based on today?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm 30% over my cap: ~1.2TB used on a 900GB cap...
This is mostly video streaming (much of which is 4k)- but both my fiance and I work from home as well and I do use quite a bit a bandwidth for that.
Luckily municipal fiber is rolling out here and my neighborhood is in the initial rollout! So - by January I could have bidirectional Gbit... but I don't know the price of the service just yet....
For all the people crying about TV getting too expensive, get yourself an OTA digital antenna. Free local channels. In areas that have only one cable company this IS your competition to that company for TV. If you can't live without 4K streaming well then get out your pocketbooks.
ok. so here goes my karma...
////rant////
////rant off ////
F* you, and your 4k F*ing video streams.
I hope you have to pay through the nose for those 4k video streams. Until the baseline definition for broadband has been bumped up to 1Gigabit/sec, meaning a new definition of the minimum internet connection speed for sale in the US, allowing a few special snowflakes to be used as a rational for the outrageously expensive costs of internet connections that are common here in the US and at the same time leaving tens of millions of people with no access to 1Gigabit/sec connections, whatsoever, due to the criminal diversion of exorbitantly high monthly rates from the long-promised and never-delivered upgrades to our infrastructure, straight into the pockets of their F*in shareholders, is injustice in the extreme.
4k video on your F* phone!, give me a F*ing break, the human being has yet to be born, whose eyes can discern that kind of resolution difference on a 5" screen at 2 ft. Maybe it's worth it on a 60" screen from 12-15 ft away, but on a F*ing phone??????????
When data caps were introduced
The local population here moved to make sure they werent introduced here. Franchise agreements put the power in the peoples hands so long as the people know where the power rests.
Sorry California, your move to make it a federal issue while never doing anything to pressure the locals just shows exactly how dumb you are.
"His name was James Damore."
Asking from Europe.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
4K is worth it if your HD stream doesn't have 4:4:4 chroma subsampling.
Most HD and 4K streams use 4:2:2 chroma subsampling to save bandwidth. However, a 4K streams trivially down-samples to 4:4:4 chroma subsampling at HD resolution, and that means you'll see a shaper picture on a plain 1080p TV with a 4K stream.
Example: 4:2:2 vs 4:4:4 comparison
p.s. You'll see an even bigger difference if your TV supports 10-bit color.
All the HEVC content I find has 4k content at the same (or smaller) file size as the normal x264 1080p stuff. Why don't they just use a more efficient encoding method for 4k content and not raise the required bandwidth at all?
The last week of everything month is me closely watching consumption and yelling at the kids (and myself) to keep it under Comcast's 1TB. Under normal use we are just at the limit but occasionally we'd go over but 100gb without cutting back. Game downloads on Xbox seem to be another issue. Even if it's a physical copy the "patch" is still almost a full 100gig download. Sadly the only offerings are "no cap at double the price" or "enjoy your 1TB."
-Xen
I have no data caps. Not hidden or otherwise. They even ask you "Ready to become a real Netflix addict? (n_n)".
That is what you get for living in a communist country like Belgium where we have competition.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.