In Japan, a 900 Gigabyte Upload Cap, Downloads Uncapped 368
Raindeer writes "While the Broadband Bandits of the US are contemplating bandwidth caps between 5 gigabyte and 40 gigabyte per month, the largest telco in Japan has gone ahead and laid down some heavy caps for Japan's broadband addicts. From now on, if you upload more than 30 gigabyte per day, your network connection may be disconnected. Just think of it ... if you're in Japan and want to upload the HD movie you shot of yesterday's wedding, you soon might hit the limit. The downloaders do not face similar problems."
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
If only there were a way (Score:3, Interesting)
To provide service to the broadband neglected in the US -- like, for example, allowing the public power districts that already have wires running to the homes do it.
30 gigs up is way more than I could ever send. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a 10megabit down, 1.5megabit up at home. This means it would take me 44 hours to upload 30 gigabytes with my 1.5mb/s upload speed.
Perhaps until the backbone in Japan is updated to uncap upload speeds, the right answer would be to throttle bit rates for anyone who has uploaded more than 20 gigabytes in a particular month? You could almost do it by just slowly ramping down rather than cutting people off--and it's a lot less antisocial than just pulling the customer's plug.
Hell, I have an effective 20gigabyte/month upload cap because that's the maximum capacity of my bandwidth; yet until I heard about Japan's bandwidth I wasn't complaining.
As a footnote, the quote of the day at the bottom of my page reads: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS"
Seems appropriate somehow...
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bandwidth cap? Not here (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing is, the ISPs make next to nothing on the leased lines. I'd bet that if you just call them once per month (question about a bill, complaint about speed or packet loss, other errors), those subscribers are producing red numbers.
Of course, I don't know if the market is similar in Finland.
Disclaimer: I have worked for one of the largest Danish ISPs, specifically with DSL.
Re:There is no need for this for ordinary users (Score:5, Interesting)
The.X-Files.COMPLETE.MULTiSUBS.PAL.DVDR-MULTiGRP 253.91GB
Sure, downloading that is against the law in most countries, but if the bandwidth was there, the legal services providing similar products would come.
Unless you are some kid who thinks he is 'sticking it to the man' by downloading every single hollywood movie in HD
spider-man.3.wvc1.1080p.bluray.nlsubs.rabomil.wmv 13GB
That would make 2-3 hollywood movies per month I guess then.
And the rest of your comment shows that you have no idea of who pirates. Sure, the 15-29 group is overrepresented, but that has more to do with the fact that they are more savage with computers and the internet, and not with their age or political agenda. (Ah well, that they are more savage with computers and the internet does have to do with their age statistically)
from dodgy torrent sites
Dodgy torrent sites? I admit that I am careful when download applications via bittorrent. On the other hand, I am equally careful when downloading it from any other site, because the malware industry is huge. Trust is the only thing you have to go on due to crappy operating systems (and this is not limited to windows) that don't automatically install all applications in a sandbox. If I wanted an application to write to any files (including my data files) outside of its own configuration/program directory I would want to give it specific permission to do so. Of course, selecting a file in an operating system open/save file dialog should count as giving permission.
Ok, that got a little off topic, so let's get back to it.
I'm sure some smug slashdotters will equate this to the 640k quote, but tell me exactly how my need for digital data downloaded to my PC is going to go much higher in the next ten years?
It probably won't be. The majority of the old generation always stays with what the already have. Frontrunners in technology is and will always be young people, With a few older here and there.
might be someting else (Score:2, Interesting)
Could the ISPs be telling the content providers to go jump in the lake?
Re:Bandwidth cap? Not here (Score:5, Interesting)
The customer can then sign up with whichever ISP they want.
In some countries (such as the UK) the ISPs are also guaranteed access at "cost plus" basis to the local exchanges, so that some ISPs actually offer faster DSL connections than the company that owns the lines (BT, who owns the lines in the UK offer max 8Mbps for example, while many ISPs offer 24Mbps DSL by placing their own equipment in the exchanges).
It's what sane government regulation gets you.
Re:Bandwidth cap? Not here (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but you don't see the dark side of what that regulation gets you - universal healthcare, decent public transportation (compared to most of the US), lots of vacation time. Your wealthy people probably don't get anything like the tax cuts ours do. Practically the third world, that.
It's exactly 60 years since the National Health Service was started in the UK (1948-07-05), there was a documentary on how it happened this evening. I'm young, and have always taken it for granted; I only started thinking about it when I read posts from Americans debating it on here a year or two ago. A few of the arguments against are similar to the ones from the 40s.
I admire the people of any country that cares for all their people, without cost to the individual [at the point of use, obviously taxes are used to pay for it all]. I shall now be proud of my country, at least until it does something stupid. But I also heard today that knife crime is now officially a higher priority for the police than "terrorism", so maybe things are changing :-D.
Re:Download caps (Score:4, Interesting)
I've produced 16 people for deposition in one month. All were plaintiffs in a Reduction In Force / Older Worker's Benefit Protection Act suit. Just last month (June) I had four depositions lasting longer than 8 hours. (FWIW I have a Masters in Endocrine Physiology (Masters only program) and I do understand lab data output though I was working on a PDP 11 when I took that Master's Degree).
IF what we were considering here was a reasonable path to off-site backups/disaster planning/remote access at high bandwidth - I could easily see how only 3-6 attorneys engaged in moderate litigation could generate 5T/mo.
What do bandwidth caps portend for small business - you don't have to be an attorney to create media - consider advertising firms, contractors, real estate - all could easily top the cap without being able to plan ahead. Market forces drive the demand. If you just created the Tesla vehicle and gas went to $20.00/gal - you had better have the bandwidth and data to feed your potential customers what they want.
Slashdot users not so good at math? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you run the math on the 100/100 Mbit (Japanese) connections in question, these caps are equal to only 3% of a user's upload 24/7. In Comcast's area, that would be 324 MB a day for 6/1 service, or 9.7 GB a month.
These caps are much, much worse for the service offered than Comcast's rumored 250 GB cap or the actual 400+ GB cap they currently use to remove excessive users from their network today.
Re:calculation time (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, according to data from 2007, tokyo's population density was of 4700 person per square km, vs 2050 for new york. Los Angele, the closest USA city on the list stands at about 2700. Nowhere close. Plus, if you go by population density of the country (since federal governments have a hand in pushing these things along), the US have an insignificant population density, while in Japan you'd have to cater to less total surface. Big difference.
Life is great (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope this new cap does not pose any problems for me. I have 60mbit down / 20mbit up.. I live near Tokyo, Japan. The entire country has fibre up the ass here for the most part (I've heard about 80%) and this stems from a totally different corporate culture here. It is starting to change and become more weestern (god help them), but generally in Japan the company you work for takes care of you a lot more and for a lot longer, and as a CEO you would stay with the same company for probably the rest of your career a lot more often. Because of this, the long-term success of a company is treated as being much more important than the short term profit / how the stocks perform this quarter. As such, Japanese companies are more willing to invest HUGE sums of money up front in R&D and infrastructure that wont make them any money for years and sometimes decades (Look at Tokyo's public transit/subway/monorail system, I've heard that it wont cover the debts it made to be built for another decade or two still, and they're still building new subway lines). This difference in corporate thinking is what has put the Japanese at the forefront in terms of technology applied to everyday living. Going back home to the US feels like walking into a technologically primative country, and not because the Japanese have any great marvels of technology, they simply spend more money on finding applicable ways to have technology contribute to everyday life.
Re:Life is great (Score:3, Interesting)