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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.
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.
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?
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.
The most I ever used was when gathering evidence of the performance problems with the ISP. It was Virgin Media, and they were prioritizing speed test sites so that you couldn't prove that their service was crap.
I decided to use a non-speed test site to gather evidence. They ran an FTP server that mirrored some popular Linux distros and games. I created a simple script to keep downloading some ISOs with 16 threads, saturating my connection for weeks at a time. All the while I gathered speed data, and could see that regular as clockwork every afternoon and all weekend it was crippled. 150Mb down to about 1.5Mb with massive packet loss.
Eventually they noticed and shut down the FTP server, but by that point I had enough data to make my case. Got a fairly substantial refund and out of my contract, moved on to Zen over wet string.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
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
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 dawn of video ads was the time i decided to block everything. Adblockers + SafeScript. I haven't been bothered by ads in years. Also no tracking..
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.
There are a few theories above about high data usage, but does anyone really know, any surveys/studies done ?
nope you're wrong... this is how verizon buisness plans are now, and it is way better than any alternative i'm aware of....
sigs are for fags
even most poor countries don't have data caps in the business model.
also, yanks are totally getting f'd up in the ass by telecoms for like 30th year in a row now.
fact of the matter is, data caps and non-net-neutrality is at the heart of how american telecoms have a plan to keep f'kin the regular american joe up the a for the next 30 years. Ultrasuperhighdefinition tv goes along with that - the whole idea is to sell you streaming that you can only buy through their special supergood deal that costs 4x what it should cost.
also, it has roots at american government being totally toothless at protecting customers from false advertising. how can you call something unlimited if you can max out it in a day? the whole scene is a joke laughed at globally.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
yep, video and audio Ads were the final straw for me too. Crossed that line from bearable but annoying to fucking irritating and impossible to ignore so must block all. Prior to that Ad Blockers were too annoying to bother with, now every machine I use has one and sites that don't like Ad Blockers I don't use.
I can't tell you how many sites I have left because they put a whole page blocker for using an adblocker. I haven't missed anything great from it either. And once you have safescript set correctly for your daily sites you hardly notice it.