Charge consumers per byte of data they send/receive. Yes, it sucks if you are a bandwidth hog, but its really the only fair solution.
So, you're suggesting that we pay companies for internet by the byte once (10Mbps for 30 days = X bytes), but if we actually want to *use* any of the bytes we already have access to, we have to pay them *again*? Bullshit. If Comcast is taking a loss offering me 10 Mbps, then they should've only offered me 5.
Further, how is paying Comcast by the byte to let Microsoft patch my broken operating system fair? What about advertisements on websites? Sites designed to piss off consumers paying for their internet traffic (e.g. a bit.ly link to a page with an image that has an ajax call in the background which downloads a 1MB image and displays it in a hidden div every second you stay on the page)? How about some forms of DRM that maintain a constant connection to a server?
Point: You're not directly responsible for much of the content you consume. Additionally, the ISP has no way to know your intent when you consume said data. Further, at 10Mbps, you can pull down a *LOT* of data in a hurry; ask people on satellite with those awesome caps of theirs how much it sucks when Windows auto-updates and uses your last 200 MB of bandwidth for the month while you're asleep one night, and it's only the 10th day of the billing cycle.
Additionally, torrents are a totally separate battle. Usage patterns for torrents are odd, but can often stay within one provider's network (since the closer someone is, the better the transfer rate is likely to be). Really, though, that's not relevant here; what I'm interested in reading about is a cable company charging its users for content which directly competes with its traditional cable offerings in a desperate attempt to keep a hold on its monopoly.
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Charge consumers per byte of data they send/receive. Yes, it sucks if you are a bandwidth hog, but its really the only fair solution.
So, you're suggesting that we pay companies for internet by the byte once (10Mbps for 30 days = X bytes), but if we actually want to *use* any of the bytes we already have access to, we have to pay them *again*? Bullshit. If Comcast is taking a loss offering me 10 Mbps, then they should've only offered me 5. Further, how is paying Comcast by the byte to let Microsoft patch my broken operating system fair? What about advertisements on websites? Sites designed to piss off consumers paying for their internet traffic (e.g. a bit.ly link to a page with an image that has an ajax call in the background which downloads a 1MB image and displays it in a hidden div every second you stay on the page)? How about some forms of DRM that maintain a constant connection to a server? Point: You're not directly responsible for much of the content you consume. Additionally, the ISP has no way to know your intent when you consume said data. Further, at 10Mbps, you can pull down a *LOT* of data in a hurry; ask people on satellite with those awesome caps of theirs how much it sucks when Windows auto-updates and uses your last 200 MB of bandwidth for the month while you're asleep one night, and it's only the 10th day of the billing cycle. Additionally, torrents are a totally separate battle. Usage patterns for torrents are odd, but can often stay within one provider's network (since the closer someone is, the better the transfer rate is likely to be). Really, though, that's not relevant here; what I'm interested in reading about is a cable company charging its users for content which directly competes with its traditional cable offerings in a desperate attempt to keep a hold on its monopoly.