Broadband data caps are having their intended effect: punishing cord-cutters

[ET3D]

This 'punishing' is a natural result of video taking most of the internet bandwidth. It's easy for companies to sell 'unlimited' something when the expected use is low, but when usage is high, that becomes impractical.

Logically if you use 300GB a month, you should pay 300 times higher than someone who uses 1GB. That won't sell too well, so that's not what happens, but you should keep that at the back of your mind. You're using a limited resource. With cable, that infrastructure is factored into the payment. With the internet, it needs to be factored somewhere, so there's every reason for the provider to limit you or charge more.

 

[cliffordcooley]

For me personally 300GB per month would equate to one of the following:

• 25 to 40 Games
• 750 TV Series Episodes
  
• 300 Movies
• 20 Disk Image Backups
• 600k+ Photos
• 60K+ MP3s

I seriously don't see any combination, where I would ever exceed 300GB per month. Maybe in 10 years when the size of a standard game is 100GB. We are practically there now, although I've not downloaded any game over 15GB yet.

 

[Cliff56]

Only thing I have is a hotspot with Verizon. No cable or high speed broadband available...I pay $130/mo for 18 GB. Try to stay under that cap

Holy s***!

Holy sh*t indeed. I use Brighthouse in Florida and get unlimited bandwidth at 120 Mbps for $ 54.00/month. Cut cable Tv years ago and have never missed it. I've never noticed any throttling either. Very satisfied with their service.

BS.....im in tampa.....we only have 15mb down with 1mb up for 60 bucks a month here from brighthouse......no other options.....but no data caps

I am in east Tampa and have Verizon 50down/ 50up.

 

[Devon Ortiz]

Only thing I have is a hotspot with Verizon. No cable or high speed broadband available...I pay $130/mo for 18 GB. Try to stay under that cap

Jesus H CHRIST! That's literally THE WORST deal I've EVER heard.
I pay $40 for unlimited, completely unthrottled LTE from MetroPCS, and with a proper Tether app, I can avoid any sort of cap. I use 300+GB every month for just about everything, and no repercussions.

 

[OldGoalie]

Looks like another challenge for the FCC and Govt. regulators....sounds like it possible case of monopoly similar to the price fixing issues that came up a couple of decades ago. Might be exactly the push they need to force the cable companies to offer their ware's on an a la carte basis as most would like.

Look up the word monopoly and explain how that applies here. Price fixing happens when their are few options and collusion. Competition is already causing causing cable companies to offer more a la carte services. Why would we want the the government to step in a offer more regulation?

 

[OldGoalie]

In what way are consumers getting the shaft? Service providers are asking to be paid for the the service they are providing based on usage. How is that not fair? You call yourself a cord cutter. That is so inaccurate. You want to selectively trim the cord and expect the cord provider to slit their own throat by allowing you to use the part of their cord without limits to replace what you used to pay for. It is called pay for play. In most industries that is just considered good business. Just because you do not like it does not mean your are getting shafted. Cord cutters are not being punished, they are just being asked to live in the real world and pay for the services they consume. How is a provider being unfair when they do not provide unlimited service just because their band width would allow it. How are they not supposed to be able to monetize their services.

 

[CrisisDog]

I live in the Detroit area and have WOW cable. No limits at this time for us, and the service is pretty decent. The kids stream Netflix or Hulu during the day for their cartoon shows, and the wife binge watches her various TV show seasons in the evening. I'm more concerned about the electric bill, coming in at $200+ a month, for the TVs constantly running...

 

[CobraA1]

This 'punishing' is a natural result of video taking most of the internet bandwidth. It's easy for companies to sell 'unlimited' something when the expected use is low, but when usage is high, that becomes impractical.

Logically if you use 300GB a month, you should pay 300 times higher than someone who uses 1GB. That won't sell too well, so that's not what happens, but you should keep that at the back of your mind. You're using a limited resource. With cable, that infrastructure is factored into the payment. With the internet, it needs to be factored somewhere, so there's every reason for the provider to limit you or charge more.

Cable Internet has plenty of bandwidth to go around. Streaming video is highly compressed, and very likely takes far less bandwidth than watching the video on a channel. If they can fit hundreds of channels into a single copper wire - there's no way the Internet is using even a fraction of that. It's largely a bogus argument.

Copper (or fiber optics) is nowhere near as limited as wireless. It has incredible bandwidth, and you can always lay down more copper. Building out more infrastructure is possible. So I'm very comfortable saying that I uphold cable internet to a much different standard than wireless.

 

[tjmc1152]

Or do as I did. cut the cord all together and watch movies on my dvd player. get the news on my smart phone. done deal...

 

[CobraA1]

In what way are consumers getting the shaft? Service providers are asking to be paid for the the service they are providing based on usage. How is that not fair? You call yourself a cord cutter. That is so inaccurate. You want to selectively trim the cord and expect the cord provider to slit their own throat by allowing you to use the part of their cord without limits to replace what you used to pay for. It is called pay for play. In most industries that is just considered good business. Just because you do not like it does not mean your are getting shafted. Cord cutters are not being punished, they are just being asked to live in the real world and pay for the services they consume. How is a provider being unfair when they do not provide unlimited service just because their band width would allow it. How are they not supposed to be able to monetize their services.

If they want to bill me based on the number of GB I use, fine.

But if they want to cap me, that's not fine. My electric bills and water bills don't come with caps, I don't see why my internet bill has to be different.

Caps are not "usage." That's bogus.

 

[kcsunshine]

About using Binge On with your chromecast, are you sure you are not using your T-Mobile data or your ISP? When you use chromecast, it uses whatever wifi it is connected to. Keep in mind that chromecast does not receive the video stream from your phone. If the wifi is configured to your ISP, it will use your ISP data. If it is configured for your T-Mobile hotspot, tethered data counts toward your usage limit even if it is one of the Binge On streams. I doubt you have an unlimited plan from T-Mobile since you mention Binge On. I think the only way it won't use your T-Mobile data is if you use a MHL cable to connect to your TV or use miracast. A fire TV stick may also work. You can check your T-Mobile data usage after watching a video but you need to check your ISP too.

 

[2UWrangler]

A viable alternative is to have the U.S. Post Office provide Fibre-Optic to the customer premise.
Fibre-Optic has nearly unlimited bandwidth. Fibre-Optic has been "in play" now over 15 years.

The protocols are all the same I.e. ATM packets eventually converted to ethernet once at the customer site.

The Post Office could offer two pricing tiers, a lower cost say 32.00 $/month and you receive all the "junk mail".
or pay 64.00 $/month and no junk mail at all.
In either case one could still access any streaming service of their choice w/o bandwidth usage "caps".

 

[SupportThe2ND]

We've been cord cutters for over six years now and only once in that time even came close to our 300GB data plan because of some really large system updates for multiple computers and OSX. Usually more typical is 130-170 in any given month as Wave Broadband has an easy way to monitor usage. I can't imagine using that much every month and that is all we use is our internet connection for streaming.

 

[Rodger Dodger]

A viable alternative is to have the U.S. Post Office provide Fibre-Optic to the customer premise.
Fibre-Optic has nearly unlimited bandwidth. Fibre-Optic has been "in play" now over 15 years.

The protocols are all the same I.e. ATM packets eventually converted to ethernet once at the customer site.

The Post Office could offer two pricing tiers, a lower cost say 32.00 $/month and you receive all the "junk mail".
or pay 64.00 $/month and no junk mail at all.
In either case one could still access any streaming service of their choice w/o bandwidth usage "caps".

Oh, ok, the post office Is going to Pay to run fiber cable everywhere? Uh huh.

 

[misor]

A viable alternative is to have the U.S. Post Office provide Fibre-Optic to the customer premise.
Fibre-Optic has nearly unlimited bandwidth. Fibre-Optic has been "in play" now over 15 years.

The protocols are all the same I.e. ATM packets eventually converted to ethernet once at the customer site.

The Post Office could offer two pricing tiers, a lower cost say 32.00 $/month and you receive all the "junk mail".
or pay 64.00 $/month and no junk mail at all.
In either case one could still access any streaming service of their choice w/o bandwidth usage "caps".

I am not sure fiber optic (high speed) internet and post office belong together.

 

[Drizzt545]

I cut the cord and have missed little of the shows I enjoy. I bought the tivo Ota dvr and the expansion hard drivedrive. Total cost lifetime service $400. I can stream hulu, Netflix, and some other services. I get all the major networks and it uses almost no data, except for streaming. This was almost 2 years ago and I don't miss much I can't get except some AMC and USA channels. I can stream many other channels on my Sprint phone with unlimited data. I highly recommend the tivo units to cut the cord if you can use an antenna to get your major networks for free. Occasionally I get some break up but not often. This method can greatly reduce data overage on a capped plan. My tv picture is better than cable also

 

[Nitrotoxin]

What is a data cap? lol I have no such thing...

 

[Luurch]

Sad how so much of this could be avoided by a company providing a decent service, and keeping their customers happy. Chattanooga Tennessee has city wide fiber for its residents, included with cable tv for under $100 bones a month. A lot of the bigger cities have the availability to something like this. The fact that comcast, and the other providers seem more then happy to rape us for nothing, simply because they can. American way!

 

[techcurious]

Only thing I have is a hotspot with Verizon. No cable or high speed broadband available...I pay $130/mo for 18 GB. Try to stay under that cap

Holy s***!

Holy sh*t indeed. I use Brighthouse in Florida and get unlimited bandwidth at 120 Mbps for $ 54.00/month. Cut cable Tv years ago and have never missed it. I've never noticed any throttling either. Very satisfied with their service.

BS.....im in tampa.....we only have 15mb down with 1mb up for 60 bucks a month here from brighthouse......no other options.....but no data caps

I am in east Tampa and have Verizon 50down/ 50up.

I am in North Tampa, and I have 200 down from Brighthouse for $50 a month.

 

[Camikazi]

Sad how so much of this could be avoided by a company providing a decent service, and keeping their customers happy. Chattanooga Tennessee has city wide fiber for its residents, included with cable tv for under $100 bones a month. A lot of the bigger cities have the availability to something like this. The fact that comcast, and the other providers seem more then happy to rape us for nothing, simply because they can. American way!

I think the reason things like that isn't done in other places is because the ISPs fight it and start throwing out lawsuits against it. They fight city run ISPs because it affects them, they are very much willing to take cities into the courts to stop them.

 

[WhoCares]

This is nothing more then GREED! from the Cable Co's. And the ***** FCC & Fool Government have no ball's to do anything about it.. 300GB's is nothing. Do you know if you watch just one HD movie on Netflix a day. in about 20 days you will be OVER your 300GB's limit. And that does not count your everyday net use. And think if you have a family of 4,5. Ha! you will be over the 300GB limit in no time.
I don't have any Caps on my Net use (YET). When it does happen. I will just drop all my online streaming deals. Get 5 DVD's at a time in the mail from Netflix. And tell the cable people to stuff it.. And take there Greed with them..

 

[Really]

This 'punishing' is a natural result of video taking most of the internet bandwidth. It's easy for companies to sell 'unlimited' something when the expected use is low, but when usage is high, that becomes impractical.

Logically if you use 300GB a month, you should pay 300 times higher than someone who uses 1GB. That won't sell too well, so that's not what happens, but you should keep that at the back of your mind. You're using a limited resource. With cable, that infrastructure is factored into the payment. With the internet, it needs to be factored somewhere, so there's every reason for the provider to limit you or charge more.

You probably work for comcast... Traditionally broadband int

 

[Really]

This 'punishing' is a natural result of video taking most of the internet bandwidth. It's easy for companies to sell 'unlimited' something when the expected use is low, but when usage is high, that becomes impractical.

Logically if you use 300GB a month, you should pay 300 times higher than someone who uses 1GB. That won't sell too well, so that's not what happens, but you should keep that at the back of your mind. You're using a limited resource. With cable, that infrastructure is factored into the payment. With the internet, it needs to be factored somewhere, so there's every reason for the provider to limit you or charge more.

You probably work for comcast... Traditionally broadband int

internet was unlimited.. This capping is ****ed, especially since my internet mysteriously cuts out late at night sometimes. If I have to pay to increase data, they should have to discount for everytime you need internet and dont have it. Comcast is bullshit and screwed me over a lot in college when I was doing homework.

 

[Really]

About using Binge On with your chromecast, are you sure you are not using your T-Mobile data or your ISP? When you use chromecast, it uses whatever wifi it is connected to. Keep in mind that chromecast does not receive the video stream from your phone. If the wifi is configured to your ISP, it will use your ISP data. If it is configured for your T-Mobile hotspot, tethered data counts toward your usage limit even if it is one of the Binge On streams. I doubt you have an unlimited plan from T-Mobile since you mention Binge On. I think the only way it won't use your T-Mobile data is if you use a MHL cable to connect to your TV or use miracast. A fire TV stick may also work. You can check your T-Mobile data usage after watching a video but you need to check your ISP too.

I did this on chromecast you just need a phone with a hotspot and a different device to connect the chromecast to it......

 

[WhoCares]

I did cut the cable out years ago... 95% of what is on it total Crap.
I use Netflix, Warner Archives, CBS all Access & Amazon Prime.
And have a Ton od DVD's & Laser Disc. Even have some VHS Tapes...
If the Date Caps hit me to much.. I will drop the inline deals..
it's all about one thing.... GREED..