Charter Cable Capping Usage Nationwide This Month 369
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from DSL Reports, with possible bad news for Charter customers who live outside the test areas for the bandwidth caps the company's been playing with: "Yesterday we cited an anonymous insider at Charter who informed us that the company would very soon be implementing new caps. Today, Charter's Eric Ketzer confirmed the plans, and informed us that Charter's new, $140 60Mbps tier will not have any limitations. Speeds of 15Mbps or slower will have a 100GB monthly cap, while 15-25Mbps speeds will have a 250GB monthly cap. 'In order to continue providing the best possible experience for our Internet customers, later this month we will be updating our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to establish monthly residential bandwidth consumption thresholds,' Ketzer confirms. 'More than 99% of our customers will not be affected by our updated policy, as they consume far less bandwidth than the threshold allows,' he says." But if they're lucky, customers will be able to hit that cap quickly.
$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like Comcast... I'm getting sick of this crap
If you get 250GB/month, then you're actually allowed a constant usage of 0.78mbps, regardless of whether you can burst up to 15mbps (or whatever).
Comcast internet service runs $50 to $70 on average, depending on the burst speed you get.
However, the limit is always 250GB/month. So doing the math, you're paying $65 to $90 per megabit/sec!
At any given datacenter, you can buy (100mbit-burstable) bandwidth at $5 per megabit/sec (price includes renting a server, rack space, power, and cooling).
Someone will of course respond "then don't use their service." Well, thats great, I'd love to. Unfortunately my government subsidy to Comcast gave Comcast a monopoly on the lines... and for some reason there are areas of the city that are "designated RCN" areas, while others are "designated Comcast" areas. What is this bullshit??
I'm angry at telecommunications companies.
New 60Mbps service (Score:2, Insightful)
But if they're lucky, customers will be able to hit that cap quickly.
This refers to the 60Mbps service being offered. However, the summary itself says it will have no cap.
Does Charter offer their customers anyway to check on their bandwidth usage? If not, do they intend to release those tools?
Same old song and dance... (Score:2, Insightful)
It'll be interesting to see how long this lasts. The same type of thing happened back when Netscrape came out (RIP Gopher you'll be missed, *sniff*); pictures could be embedded in web browsers. Remember the jpg vs gif debates? We used to have a partial t1, now we play with partial gig 10 years later.
I'm guessing history will repeat itself, and while some companies will have limits, others wont, and they will advertise that way. From the article, this shouldn't bother anything serious about their downloads.
(BTW, this is mfh [slashdot.org] posting as AC to avoid the unnecessary karmic repercussions of that most nasty, tasty kind of wicked, strange brew and such.)
What happens at the end of the month? (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize these are pretty high caps, but what happens at the end of the month when your heaviest users hit their caps? Isn't it going to be a stretch to say that you cap usage due to bandwidth constraints, yet because the heaviest users are not using it the available bandwidth skyrockets?
Another thought is, you buy/lease/subscribe to a line with 20mbps and that's what you expect out of your service. Is it reasonable to expect that they multiply each user by their speed and have enough bandwidth to supply all of their customers? We all seem to understand when phones get overloaded during emergencies, but if that internet doesn't come to us immediately it's suddenly bait and switch, that we can't use what we were sold?
My point is, I suppose, we are sold the connection to the ISP at a certain speed, but we are not guaranteed that it will function at that speed. If bandwidth is available, why the arbitrary cap? Shouldn't it be more like you lose priority after hitting a certain level?
Re:Doing the math... (Score:3, Insightful)
'More than 99% of our customers will not be affected by our updated policy, as they consume far less bandwidth than the threshold allows'
If the VAST majority of the users use less then the cap, whats the point of having a cap anyway? 1% of users going over won't effect anything.
Just like slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is, you asked for it, you got it, and arguing that 250gb a month isn't reasonable would be tough. Comcast is right - that should cover 99% of their customers, and of the 1% who "need" more bandwidth, 99% of them probably aren't using it for legitimate downloads. Anyone who needs more than that shouldn't expect to be paying what their neighbors are.
For what it's worth, I'm paying over $100 for 1mb SDSL. If I were to top it out 24 hours a day and never reboot I could possibly get to 250gb.
Re:Same old song and dance... (Score:5, Insightful)
and while some companies will have limits, others wont, and they will advertise that way
Or they'll just all collude in the manner that the wireless companies (SMS pricing) have and not bother to actually compete with one another.
Re:What happens at the end of the month? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. I have no problem with caps or even quality of service. If the ISPs actually worked with their customers then a lot of these problems they are having could go away. I wouldn't have any problems with my bit torrent packets having lower priority than someone's VOIP packets. One is far more sensitive to latency than the other. I also wouldn't mind them decreasing my uploading bandwidth during peak hours and giving me increased uploading bandwidth during non peak hours.
I find it funny (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it funny that ISPs are switching to tiered plans while cell phone companies are switching to all you can eat plans. While I'm not a fan of tiered plans, I do prefer that they have clearly defined limits and consequences and the ability to check current usage. Currently, Charter does not, but then again this is a leak.
Just don't make it Comcastic.
Re:Ok (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fine with caps at all ranges - as long as they are advertised as such - and i don't mean in the small print - if they advertise a connection as unlimited it should be just that.. unlimited.. not "unlimited until 200gb"
Re:Just like slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Why shouldn't they pay the same? They are paying for speed, not the amount of bandwidth they are using. Will the price drop for those with capped connections? Because after all, now that all the "higher need" users are paying more, those that doesn't use a lot should pay less, right?
Re:Last sentence is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely - - - - as long as they stop advertising all plans below 60mbs as "unlimited".
That's been the problem the previous times bandwidth has been brought up. It's not that caps are bad per se, it's that advertising "unlimited" then implementing a (often hidden) cap is fraud.
And of course, another complication is the fact that last-mile competition is stifled by private ownership of the wire, which together with an undue burden on residents for unlimited fiber pulls, creates a very high barrier to entry for new companies willing to offer truly unlimited service and take market share from the entrenched (literally, in this case) competitors.
Re:Doing the math... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the point of the cap is to extract more money from the people who use more of the bandwidth.
If you're an optimist, Charter will use the extra money and the list of people willing to pay for more bandwidth as a guide for where to roll out additional fiber.
If you're a pessimist, Charter just wants to extract more money from the people least likely to switch to their only alternative - dial-up.
Re:Just like slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
See, Comcast doesn't work in a vacuum. They aren't arbitrarily setting costs and reaping in hordes of money. They price their offerings to be competetive. Even when they are the only provider in an area, since their prices are more or less identical between locations. If they need more bandwidth because one guy is using a ton more than anyone else, they have to upgrade, and to pay for that they have to raise their prices. You see it as being strong armed and dictating the market, but they are playing in the same market as you. Sure, they aren't going to find a way to save $1 a month per customer and pass the savings along to you, but if they have to upgrade something and it ends up costing $1 more per person, you can bet they will.
The fact that customers were paying for speed and not bandwidth last month is irrelevent. The few customers that mattered complained about how they wanted firm caps, and now they've got them. If you want a higher cap you pay more for it. What the hell did everyone expect? The new cap is probably as big as 90% of their customers' hard drives! At what cap would people stop complaining?
And.. If users say a cap is the way to resolve an issue where the highest users consume 50x as much bandwidth as the average user, how can you expect the cap to be anywhere near what the highest users were consuming?
Is the usage available for viewing (Score:3, Insightful)
With all these ISPs capping b/w doesn't it make sense for them to have a usage meter for their users when the log-in to their account or something like that?
Just like the cell phone providers do?
If you want me to cap a a quantitative limit, you should let me know how do I find out where I stand ..
Re:Looks like good news to me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
For Internet "use" (meaning actual interactive use, streaming HD video, VoIP calls, web surfing, game playing, etc.) you are sitting there. Presuming you work, you spend 9 hours a day at an 8 hour a day job (lunch) plus an hour each way for the average person, and you have lost 11 hours a day. Add in 8 hours of sleeping. That's 19 hours a day. You blow 1 hour a day on bathroom time getting ready for work, fixing food, etc. We'll assume you are on the Internet while eating. So, for a weekday, you have about 4 hours a day of Internet use. Toss in 16 hours every weekend day (8 hours of sleep, and nothing but Internet all day long) and you are looking at being at a computer around 50 hours a week. That's more like 3 Mbps. So, what are you doing that is 3 Mbps for every second you are sitting at the computer? You can stream regular TV 100% of your usage, while downloading ISOs, checking mail, chatting, calling people over VoIP and such without ever hitting the cap, depending on compression, you could even be watching HD TV 100% of the time. Even if you are a porn downloader, with common compression, you could download 24/7 and still download faster than you can watch it without ever hitting your cap. I'm sure people out there will hit it. But I have no idea what they are doing that would qualify as "residential Internet use" that would have them smack a 250 GB/month limit.
Re:Just like slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
They are just greedy money grabbers who took billions from the federal government for upgrades, and kept it instead of upgrading. Should it surprise you that they want to make another money grab now?
Re:What happens at the end of the month? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem at all with QOS implemented by an ISP as long as it is fair, such as all VoIP packets getting the same priority, regardless of whether they have their own offering or not. As long as they don't prioritize their own services, I think they should still be allowed to maintain their common carrier status.
I do however have a problem with changing the upload speed. If they want to cap my download, go for it, but leave upload along. QOS in Smoothwall, Tomato, DD-WRT, and other routers is based on a constant upload bandwidth. This means in order to ensure you have proper-functioning QOS during a rate cap, you have to configure it for the capped speed at all times. You can no longer take advantage of your uncapped speed.
The best way to handle high-usage customers is to downgrade their priority once they hit a threshold. That way if my neighbors aren't using the bandwidth, I can. Why let the pipe sit there empty? When the neighbors need it, my priority goes down to make sure they see the speeds until they hit their own cap.
Since most peering arrangements are based on the percentage of traffic moving in one direction based on the other, they should be encouraging customers to be on the uploading side as it will help tip the scales in their direction and actually reduce their bandwidth expense.
Re:Better service (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one am glad for the caps. The #1 thing I want is for the terms of service to state the service, not promise infinite speeds and infinite bandwidth. The caps they put in place are completely reasonable.
If you get 250GB/month, then you're actually allowed a constant usage of 0.78mbps, regardless of whether you can burst up to 15mbps (or whatever).
Sounds about right. Were you meaning for this to be a complaint?
So doing the math, you're paying $65 to $90 per megabit/sec!
So what? That metric would only be relevant if you were using bandwidth constantly. Since home users do not do so, then this complaint is moot. If you are using it constantly, then you are doing more than "residential" type stuff. Same thing goes with any infrastructure: power, water, gas, roads -- they are provided residentially at different rates because they assume certain limitations of use. Otherwise, it becomes commercial and you need to move to something else.
At any given datacenter, you can buy (100mbit-burstable) bandwidth at $5 per megabit/sec (price includes renting a server, rack space, power, and cooling).
Fine, but the providers to those data centers don't have to provide service to every house in a neighborhood. They only have to provide it to specific locations, and only those that are profitable to them. Hence, they offer bandwidth at a discount.
If you have a few hundred thousand dollars, they will happily run a line to your house, and provide you with $5 per megabit/sec service.
Unfortunately my government subsidy to Comcast gave Comcast a monopoly...
I can't argue with that paragraph.
I'm angry at telecommunications companies.
The government is to blame for the monopoly situation. So I place my anger there. The telecoms are actually starting to come around (hence the bandwidth caps).
Re:Just like slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
"They price their offerings to be competetive."
You're kidding, right? Comcast has no competition where I live, and neither do many providers around the country. There's no incentive to be competitive. Why do you think ISPs have gone so far as to sue whenever a city or town even whispers the words "municipal wifi"?
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Charter customer... (Score:4, Insightful)
This kind of worries me. I time/format shift a ton of TV shows by just torrenting them, and lately, I've been streaming a ton of Netflix movies and TV shows to my Xbox 360. I have absolutely no idea how much bandwidth I'm actually using, so they'd better have some kind of tool that will show me how I'm doing.
I already have to keep an eye on and balance the bandwidth for my web site, doing it at home too is going to be annoying.
So is 15Mbps 100 or 250? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Last sentence is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise the stuff coming off, say netflix, seems pretty small and one would have to watch a hell of lot of TV to reach that limit.
Yes, one would have to watch a hell of a lot of TV to reach that limit. I have 6 'users' in my home, all of whom could theoretically be pulling down these movies. Will I hit my cap? Chances are, yes.
OTOH, why should I, someone that is using the bandwidth that I paid for (for completely legitimate reasons, mind), be penalized simply because you use less? You are not subsidizing my use of the internet, you're simply not using all of the internet available to you, and declaring that everyone should be pulled down to your standard, or you are 'losing money'.
Also, are you getting some sort of price break when my usage is capped? I mean, if the point of this is to save you money (in the form of a lack of subsidization), where are those savings?
To put this into perspective, let's consider a hypothetical: You own a gym membership. You use the gym in what is considered a 'standard' manner. Let's say, 1 hour a day, Monday - Friday. I own a gym membership as well. I, however, am a health nut, and devote 4 hours a day to physical fitness, including weekends (when I spend 6 a day). Well, the 'average' user (you) only uses the gym 1 hour a day, and even 99% of the gym members work out no more than 2 hours a day. Well, since it'll only impact a few, the gym decides to implement a policy that allows someone no more than, say, 21 hours per week (7 days a week, 3 hours per day). I mean, I am using up this finite resource (If I'm on a particular weight machine, you can't use it), and I'm using it a lot more than anyone else. Should my usage be capped off, simply because I'm using the service provided to me?
Analogies like this can be created for nearly ANY service industry that offers a flat rate. That is the risk that you, as a company, take when offering a flat rate. The fact that so many companies are trying to back out of it in the tech field now sickens me. Society would be up in arms quite a bit more if it started happening in other industries.
Re:Just like slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Glossing over the fact that it doesn't matter because they agreed to sell us the bandwidth to use as we see fit (barring illegal activities, etc.), there are also uploads to factor in. We watch a lot of streaming video, and we're about to watch more [neurostechnology.com]. But I also regularly send large files to my friends and coworkers, and my job will soon require that I send them more often (Citrix FTW). What YOU do with YOUR bandwidth may differ.
Speaking of greedy bastards, what about all the loser subscribers that want 100 Mbps of dedicated content for 1/10th what it actually costs the providers to buy it themselves?
I won't stoop to feces-flinging, but I will point out that if ISP's offer to sell a certain thing for a certain price, they are obligated to deliver that thing at that price. If it really costs them so much, then they can't really afford to sell it for so little, can they? I [iht.com] guess [bbc.co.uk] not [muniwireless.com]. Of course, Charter is in financial trouble, isn't it? Another case of over-leveraging, trying to sell what you don't have.
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe I'm paying for Netflix HD and each movie is ~3GB (3600kbps bitrate) each and Watching 1 movie each night put me up to 100GB. How do I still have bandwidth left to download my linux ISO, my online back-ups, and Windows Patches?
these are all "residential Internet use"
Re:Doing the math... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is counter to the purpose of caps, IMO.
Not really because now they have the added revenue to cover the bandwidth used by these customers. This means they are paying for their share of bandwidth allocation; as opposed to the typical user who was otherwise subsidizing these would-be cap users.
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:4, Insightful)
You have no idea what you are talking about. With a T-1 you aren't paying all that money for dedicated bandwidth. The bandwidth (i.e: port) charges on my T-1 lines has never been more than a quarter of the total charge and is usually less than that. The bulk of the expense with a T-1 goes to the 'loop' charge, i.e: the money you are paying the local telco to lease two (or more with certain implementations) pairs on their plant. There's a reason why the old nomenclature referred to T-1s as "leased lines" because that's exactly what it is and the reason why it's so expensive. It has little to do with bandwidth.
A cable provider could deliver dedicated bandwidth to you for a lot less than a T-1 line costs -- they just have to pay attention to their contention ratios. The idea of a bandwidth crunch is overblown with existing technology -- to say nothing of future technologies such as DOCSIS 3.0 or fiber to the home.
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
You're glad you're getting less from your ISP even though you're paying them the same amount? Very suspicious.
Everybody would; that's the problem. Comcast et al have promised "unlimited" and that's what everyone expects. I'm kind of surprised that you would take a cap as apposed to Comcast providing what they originally offered. Or, Comcast could also re-evaluate the way they have been selling and offer a choice to their existing customers. Instead they simply change the contract. All within their rights, but I'm still shocked you're satisfied by that.
For you. For now.
What? Citation needed. Have you seen the difference between business/residential rates for internet? I think if you did, you would stop considering this as a possibility for any home users. There needs to be a tier in-between that is reasonable.
Wow, so you do seem to know the difference. So you are totally unreasonable then. Great.
This is what really gets me about your post, and why I think you probably work for some ISP. The government is to blame for giving them money to set up an infrastructure? Aww poor monopoly, you should be allowed to abuse it! As John Stossel would say, "Give me a break!"
If you don't work for a ISP, it's important that you understand that it's reasonable for the ISPs to use all of the money that has been given to them thus far and upgrade their infrastructure. Many countries are waay far ahead of us now as it relates to residential broadband. But instead of upgrading their infrastructure, they are choosing to spend money looking for ways to limit their customers. I don't know why you wouldn't want to join most other countries with their 100+Mbps broadband connections, but this is definitely putting up road blocks to us getting there. Please look a few years into the future and see the potential that such fat connections would have for the internet and see how ISPs are getting in the way of that. You may not need these fat connections now, but as people get them there will be more services that can saturate them.
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, a**holes (Score:3, Insightful)
How about a reasonable family? Let's say two of them download games on Steam, one of them uses a VPN to work, and one of them plays WoW. Maybe they occasionally watch TV on Hulu. Think they wouldn't hit the cap?
Re:Last sentence is stupid (Score:0, Insightful)
If you're running out of space on your pipes, build bigger and more pipes. Don't try and coerce people to use *less* of your service.
I agree. They should build (and charge customers for) enough infrastructure to provide every single subscriber with the theoretical maximum 7.7 TB of bandwidth (30 days * 25 Mbps = 7.72476196 terabytes), even if they only send the occasional e-mail to the grandkids.
And while we're looking at theoretical maximum usage instead of actual usage, our local hospital can add a bed for every citizen in town on the off chance that they'll all end up in the hospital at the exact same time.
Re:Last sentence is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
About 28GB [google.com] so go a head and splurge on that and upgrade to the HD 1.2mbps steam. It's still only 44GB [google.com] per month.
Re:$65 per mbps is a bit expensive, assholes (Score:3, Insightful)
You upgrade to the next tier up with 250gb ? Seems to me, if you were able to afford an HD setup and Netflix membership, you can probably spring an extra $20 for faster internet with a more generous cap. That's the whole point of tiered service: those who use it less, pay less.
My mother has a nice cheap 5mbit 10gb service which is quicker than she is and cheaper than a 2nd phone line; she's happy with it. Most of my friends have a 10mbit 100gb service, and they're happy with it. I pay a bit more and I have 10mbit uncapped, and I'm quite happy with it. I think it's perfectly normal to pay more in order to get more.
But hey, what the hell do I know, I'm just a movie-loving geek with a 1080p display, a few terabytes of media and a fast internet connection. I get to watch what I want, when I want it, and I pay what I think is a fair price for that convenience.
Re:Last sentence is stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
To this I would say, how much tv do you watch?
Newsflash: Charter to cap TV watching to 4 hours per day.
I don't watch much TV, and if I could, I would only download the shows I want to watch. That would save more bandwidth than streaming 200 channels 24/7 to my house. Tonight, for example, I will watch Lost and Damages that I downloaded yesterday. That will probably be it for TV.
But cable doesn't want that. They'd rather keep making the same amount of money and provide less service.