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Terabyte-Using Cable Customers Double, Increasing Risk of Data Cap Fees (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: U.S. cable Internet customers are using an average of 268.7GB per month, and 4.1 percent of households use at least 1TB, according to new research by the vendor OpenVault. Households that use at least 1TB a month are at risk of paying overage fees because of the 1TB data caps imposed by Comcast and other ISPs. Terabyte users nearly doubled year over year, as just 2.1 percent of households hit the 1TB mark last year, according to OpenVault. OpenVault found that households that face data caps use 8.5-percent less data than un-capped users, suggesting that cable customers limit their Internet usage when they face the prospect of overage fees. According to OpenVault, the caps can help cable companies avoid major network upgrades.
Specifically, "OpenVault's 2018 data also shows that average usage for households with flat-rate pricing was 282.1GB/HH, more than 9 percent higher than the 258.2GB/HH average usage for households on usage-based billing (UBB) plans," OpenVault wrote. Stated another way, customers facing caps and overage fees use 8.5-percent less data than un-capped customers. Un-capped customers are, naturally, more likely to exceed a terabyte. "The percentage of flat-rate (non-UBB) households exceeding 1TB of usage was 4.82 percent, a full percentage point higher than the 3.81 percent of UBB households who exceeded the 1TB threshold," OpenVault said. The 268.7GB average household data used in December 2018 was "up from 226.4GB/HH [household] at the end of June 2018 and a 33.3 percent increase over the YE 2017 average of 201.6GB/HH," OpenVault said. Median usage was 145.2GB in December 2018, "up from 116.4GB/HH in June 2018 and a 40 percent increase over the YE 2017 median of 103.6GB/HH," the company also said.
Specifically, "OpenVault's 2018 data also shows that average usage for households with flat-rate pricing was 282.1GB/HH, more than 9 percent higher than the 258.2GB/HH average usage for households on usage-based billing (UBB) plans," OpenVault wrote. Stated another way, customers facing caps and overage fees use 8.5-percent less data than un-capped customers. Un-capped customers are, naturally, more likely to exceed a terabyte. "The percentage of flat-rate (non-UBB) households exceeding 1TB of usage was 4.82 percent, a full percentage point higher than the 3.81 percent of UBB households who exceeded the 1TB threshold," OpenVault said. The 268.7GB average household data used in December 2018 was "up from 226.4GB/HH [household] at the end of June 2018 and a 33.3 percent increase over the YE 2017 average of 201.6GB/HH," OpenVault said. Median usage was 145.2GB in December 2018, "up from 116.4GB/HH in June 2018 and a 40 percent increase over the YE 2017 median of 103.6GB/HH," the company also said.
They're just going to have to pay now for letting everyone in their neighborhood use their WiFi.
Fuck Comcast and their shitty network. They should have to pay for upgrades to their crappy-ass network. Thankfully Verizon doesn't need to add caps to their network because it's all fiber and can handle the extra traffic.
What if people who use more data simply choose the uncapped plans to avoid the risk of hitting a data ceiling rather than people on uncapped feeling free to use more?
Perhaps this data simply shows that people choose what's appropriate for them?
A lot but I suppose you could put some sort of firewall rules to lower it. Definitely a lot of settings available to look at and update
or is it Gb per month by using ad blockers.
You could also do some local proxying to eliminate a ton of "fluff" that seems to be embedded in every web page nowadays.
Fortunately my ISP currently doesn't have caps (it never has) but I still block ads until the capability is pulled from my cold dead browser.
It is frustrating that one could easily get to these type of data transfert with ever increasing numbers of updates on games (fortnight) and os which runs on more and more devices. Especially when you have no control over what and when things are downloaded!
We wouldn't be using so much bandwidth if a quarter of it wasn't bloody video ads everywhere.
We'd probably also use a bit less if we didn't have to reload or re-download everything two or three times on bad days because of timeout errors in areas they cheaped out on.
I have a couple friends who mentioned that they have issues with the 1 TB cap. Both said they tend to stream video all the time when home, sometimes just as a sort of background noise. I'm wondering if this is common behavior among others who have issue with the 1 TB caps?
I'm gonna move out californy way. I hear they got a whole mess of Internet out there.
This data cap stuff has to stop. Here's what it is, ISPs have to stop selling what they don't have the capacity for. There isn't some internet farm that's going through a drought, it's unlimited it's man made. The problem is they are selling any swingin dick 1Gbps and not tallying worst case scenario on there system. Thia is there problem.and they are using it to... You guessed it make more money.
It might be a popular feature for them to stop using data when there's on one in the room. Maybe a smartwatch could also tell them when you've fallen asleep.
microsoft finally admits users are having difficulties installing the latest feature upgrade to windows 10, with an average of 44 attempts (which each includes a full re-download) needed over the course of a month to successfully install the (forced) update.
In my area, Comcast measures your data usage by how much data they send to you from their datacenter. This would include DOS attacks, monitoring traffic from Comcast.. My monthly logs often differ from Comcasts, sometimes by as much as 10x, as much of this traffic is rejected by my gateway. None of my other utilities get away with this sort of monitoring. It is based on what I consume, not what they send. If the water pipe breaks on their side of my meter, that is their problem. Comcast makes it mine. I have only exceeded the cap once, by their records. Twice in 12 months triggers the extra fees.
Interesting... netflix has a super annoying feature which periodically asks if youre still there (pausing streaming) which i personally find annoying..
Obviously whatever your streaming app is.. doesent do that. (Lucky you)
But i hadnt considered that netflix might have done that to help with usage caps. I assumed it was for server load only. I dont have any caps on my internet.. so i guess lucky me?
I'm seeing a lot of people blaming streaming and / or game and app updates. No mention of onedrive, icloud, google photos, dropbox etc.
We've got a guy at work who's pretty tech illiterate, but he knows enough to throw a tantrum if his photos haven't synced across all his devices within 10 minutes of walking into the office. I imagine there's quite a few people who've gotten used to accessing everything from everywhere without giving a second thought to where the data is actually stored and how it gets from A to B (or in his case also C to D, E, F and G)
When the 6Mbps DSL became too slow for my son and I to use simultaneously around 4 years ago, I looked into Comcast. Their residential plans had the 1TB monthly cap. Since I watch lots of streaming video, and the son (who has since moved out) was big into gaming and regularly downloaded huge game files, I knew that wouldn't work out well, so I'm paying a bit extra for Comcast Business Class. No caps on it so far, and the service is surprisingly stable.
"A Bird In The Hand Will Poop On Your Wrist"-Benny Hill,1982
The only true number that matters is aggregate peak demand. If aggregate peak demand exceeds network capacity then packets are going to drop. So if the ISPs were being truthful and selling real services instead of fictional ones, they would sell plans with bandwidth caps that kick in only during times of congestion.
Then people would complain how they're being denied their "unlimited". Let's face it people don't want restrictions, no matter how necessary they are. Pretending otherwise is to deny human nature.
Transit is what ISPs buy when they have no cheaper way to get data to and from "the internet" for their customers. It's the most expensive way of providing a path to "the internet". A small-scale transit connection which can be used without limits around the clock costs less than $0.20 per Megabit/s. Carrying a 50Mbps connection without any kind of overcommitment costs an ISP less than $10 a month. That covers 100% use, which for a 50Mbps connection means 16TB/month. ISPs overcommit their bandwidth because most people do not use their internet connections that much. The average cost is much much lower than $10 for getting the data to and from the internet. Peering agreements help a lot too, because ISPs get connections to many big data sources (CDNs, streaming services, etc.) for just the hardware cost.
ISPs whining about these costs are not doing their jobs. They are trying to use their customers' lack of insight into the industry cost structures to justify price hikes and unreasonable pricing models. Data volume overages are bullshit.
I have 3Mb/s DSL, which doesn't quite allow 1TB/month (0.003 Tb / 8) * 365 days / 12 months * 24 hours * 3600 seconds.
So, a high speed customer should expect to able to pull a lot more than that.
This is is being framed as 1TB being excessive, when really it isn't.
The cable companies should charge the advertisers more, as that's whats being downloaded.
Netflix recommends 5 Mbps for 1080p video streams. That's a max (low-action scenes will require less), but if you assume worst-case and 8 hours/day of continuous streaming, that works out to (5 Mbps) * (8 hours/day) * (30 days/mo) = 540 GB.
The households having problems with the 1 TB cap are typically larger - 5 or more people. Mom, dad, 3+ kids all streaming different shows. It's actually fairer for them to be paying more. If each household pays the same per month, then the homes which use only 100-200 GB/mo are actually subsidizing the homes which use 1+ TB/mo. They're paying the same amount per month, while only putting 1/5 to 1/10 the load on the cable company's resources. The only catch is that because so many places in the U.S. have a cable monopoly, you have no way of knowing if the cable company is charging a fair rate, or if these overage fees just become extra profit.
It's funny how the Vaterland of the Internet falls back comparing to the rest of developed countries. In The Netherlands I pay around 40â per month for 1Gbit symmetrical optical line without any caps whatsoever, with net neutrality laws in place.
If I had a pound for every time the vile neoliberal slashdot told you yank be-ta dribblers that you need to pay MORE for the tiny amount of data your ISP companies currently provide Americans. It has been a recuring FAKE NEWS concept on slashdot for many years now.
Meantime, in other nations, a different law of physics (Re: computing, transmission lines, and the delivery of electrons) seems to apply, for America consistently has a third-world quality of Internet outside of a small number of areas where the tech elites live.
Notice how slashdot fake news aways includes pseudo science 'explaining' how the US ISPs are in the right, and their 'greedy' customers are villainous ingrates. Now understand slashdot's stories bashing Russia and Iran work in exactly the same way.
A be-ta is partially defined by their love of authority- an authority the beta 'thinks' they have chosen for their 'trustworthyness'. A be-ta thinks they choose 'better' authorities than those below them, but this, of course, is the illusion. The love of authority and 'hero' figures is a dreadful psychological mistake. Trust should be constantly earned, and those we give trust to constantly judged in readiness for the day when a source is no longer trustworthy.
Slashdot is a crude neoliberal propaganda outlet, and its 'stories' are carefully chosen pay-for-play propaganda. On every so-called tech story (increasing rare here), slashdot gets it wrong because the motivation for the story is PR lies for some entity. The lying is far worse on the political stories here.
A good rule of thumb is that if a service requires that you use their app, instead of you just using your choice of several which implement the standard (e.g. mpv, vlc) then you probably ought not subscribe to that service. And if you do, it should only be for free.
If Netflix doesn't even work with mpv yet (and mpv can play nearly anything), then whatever player they do railroad you into using, isn't likely to be any good. Or at least it won't be up to 201x (or maybe even 200x) standards.
900/400 Fibre unlimited ( no caps, no traffic shaping, no blocked Ports , net neutrality, etc) costs NZ$100
I have a choice of about 20 ISPs
One month when I was playing with Backup options I went through over 10TB, no slow down, no questions,
It helps when you have a real democracy, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE.
You've been told thousands of times to stop spamming Slashdot, yet you continue to do so. Your shit hosts file software doesn't have a damn thing to do with the topic, yet you felt the need to post about it. If you don't like the replies to your shit post, too fucking bad. You could have prevented it by not posting shit to begin with, but you're far too stupid to comprehend that.
More work-from-home employees. Companies began catching on to this as a way to save a lot of office expense and real estate... and it generally improve morale, and can improve productivity. But those same employees are not too keen on paying those internet bills... and that's even if the cable companies would be willing to split out all those bundles.
There are a few theories above about high data usage, but does anyone really know, any surveys/studies done ?
Yeah and fuck everyone else who is harmed by your irresponsible, childish attitude.
This Republican has warmed up to a socialist last mile data connection to the house. Given that that the big telecom companies are not lowering prices with better technology, or are branching into industries outside of their core competency, such as Movie studios, Political commentary (Huffington Post), web portals, and more. Last mile could be owned by a homeowner's association, or something like that.
My family of 4 sits at 85% of the 1TB data cap. I know we stream a lot but that's the only thing we do. I'm not running a server or seeding torrents or downloading large programs.
What ticks me off is that I'm fairly sure that I signed up for unlimited internet. So they added a cap to my plan and now offer unlimited internet plans for an additional fee.
It's not unusual for my household to exceed 1TB. I'll be damned if it's worth paying anything extra for. We're already paying for TV service that's never used. Go to hell Xfinity.
unecesarry code bloat
Their service was only rolled out for as long as Verizon could collect millions in government subsidies, by doing as little as possible to qualify as "helping rural areas get broadband service". FiOS itself is a nice system, but one that Verizon has no interest in expanding -- and would actually be happy to sell off if they can find a buyer for it. Verizon is really only focused on cellular services at this point.
Where I live, I can't ever get FiOS, because I live near the top of a hill, in a small town where they refuse to spend the money to run fiber another 1/2 mile or so, anyplace where the terrain isn't nice and flat. (A few people in one subdivision on flatter land, right outside the main part of the town DO have FiOS service.)
STUPID, cutting off tracker script & ads you GET BACK BANDWIDTH vs. caps so it IS on topic (you're not, loser).
You're also incredibly INEFFECTUAL & EFFETE + I stop the BIGGEST SPAMMER /.'s main purse string puller Google & their ads that slow/track/infect us - do you? No.
* I could also GIVE 2 SHITS what an UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous PUSSY like you that HIDES from me STALKING me all over /. "thinks" (since "your kind" is too STUPID for coherent thought OR creation of good tools I make 100's of 1,000 like/use online including DOZENS of registered /.ers).
APK
P.S.=> Lastly - as usual, you LOSE vs. me on ALL fronts, lol (nothing new, just what always happens ME vs. "your kind" (weezil do-NOTHING zeros, lmao))... apk
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(Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency)
APK
P.S.=> Protects against ALL known & unknown vulnerabilities. Now supports port filters in hosts. My work is world-class & China copied it because they can't do better. I am God's gift to Slashdot... apk
Seriously, people are ignoring how biased that is. Users downloading more than 1tb aren't the ones increasing the caps or the chances that ISPs will charge for them. It's the ISPs that do that. Why is blaming the users for corporations figuring out how to milk the public more successfully acceptable?
It's always been interesting that we pay the electric bill on usage and think it is a good value, but when comm provider tries to charge on usage, it seems not. The electric company gets more money and and it may be natural for the comm provider to feel entitled.
I think the electric company is charging on real costs in a regulated environment, but the comm provider is just making up numbers to see what they can get away with. (Remember old school long distance bills, where competition was required to change the game.)
For comm, the cost of production is related to:
Available transport rate , especially in the access where it is more dedicated to a specific user.
Number of bits transported where transporting more requires putting in more transport facilities
How long and exotic the path to transport is.
These are complicated factors, so without a competitive market to tell us otherwise, one might think they leave much room for charging per bit.
I would suggest that there is a comparable competitive market which shows that this is wrong. (Again, see the current price for long distance.)
What is different about the logic for pricing between long distance voice over cell and internet access?
See subject (lessen bandwidth used doing so) & APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux/BSD h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p
Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!
Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing u hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploit.
* ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 Linux
APK
P.S.=> Protects vs. scripts/trackers (kernelmode faster vs. usermode slower NoScript vs. 3rd party script)/ads/DNS request tracking + redirect poisoned or downed DNS/botnets/malware download/malcript/email malicious payload
MacOS model's NOT done yet so you can STOP now as you IMPERSONATE me here on /. nigh constantly, ok? Good!
Proof portfilter err = stopped by my work https://news.slashdot.org/comm...
* IMITATING me as you do proves you WISH you were ME though!
APK
P.S.=> Hopefully, this 'sinks in' to your DULL BRAIN @ last, finally (for the 100th time now)... apk
It's here! APK Hosts File Engine 1.0++ 64-bit for MacOS h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r M a c O S . z i p
Yields more security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats use hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!
Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" slowing you hosts speed u up 2 ways: Adblocks + Hardcode fav. sites u spend most time @ vs. competition loaded w/ security bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + overheads slowing u (messagepass 'souled-out' to advertisers easily detected & blocked addons + firewall filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploitation!
* ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI 4 MacOS!
(Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency)
APK
P.S.=> Protects against ALL known & unknown vulnerabilities. Now supports port filters in hosts. My work is world-class & China copied it because they can't do better. I am God's gift to Slashdot... apk
MacOS model's NOT done yet so you can STOP IMPERSONATING me on /.! Proof portfilter err = stopped by my work https://news.slashdot.org/comm...
* IMITATING me as you do proves you WISH you were ME though!
APK
P.S.=> Hopefully, this 'sinks in' to your DULL BRAIN @ last, finally (for the 100th time now)... apk