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Communications The Internet

Netflix Pushes FCC To Crack Down On Data Caps (dslreports.com) 160

Posted by msmash from the hate-data-caps dept.
Netflix hates data caps. The on-demand movies and TV shows service has asked the US Federal Communications Commission to declare that home internet data caps are unreasonable and that they limit customers' ability to watch online video. From an article on DSLReports:Netflix has long has an adversarial relationship with ISPs, and often for good reason. Usage caps on fixed-line networks are specifically designed to protect ISP TV revenues from Netflix competition, allowing an ISP to both complicate and generate additional profit off of the shift away from legacy TV. "Data caps (especially low data caps) and usage based pricing ("UBP") discourage a consumer's consumption of broadband, and may impede the ability of some households to watch Internet television in a manner and amount that they would like," said Netflix in a new filing with the FCC. "For this reason, the Commission should hold that data caps on fixed Âline networks ÂÂand low data caps on mobile networksÂÂ may unreasonably limit Internet television viewing and are inconsistent with Section 706." Netflix's filing comes as ISP's increasingly turn to broadband usage caps to take advantage of the lack of broadband competition in many markets. Fearing FCC crackdown both Comcast and AT&T raised their caps to one terabyte, though many ISPs still cap usage at much-lower allotments. High, low, or somewhere in between, Netflix highlights that there is no good reason to implement caps on well-managed fixed-line networks, despite a decade of ISPs trying to justify the price gouging.
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Netflix Pushes FCC To Crack Down On Data Caps More

Netflix Pushes FCC To Crack Down On Data Caps

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  • Push netflix to have adjustable resolution/quality (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12, 2016 @01:44PM (#52872739)

    I hate the data cap too, but I don't like the lack of control I have over stream quality - on most devices it looks like it just does some automatic detection.

    I much prefer the control in, say, YouTube where I can specify the resolution quality. I'd also like to be able to optimize the stream for audio or prefer certain programs in SD. The kids don't need to watch Pokemon in 4K!
    g=

    • The kids don't need to watch Pokemon in 4K!

      The Orange Islands episodes are an exception. And the Beauty and the Beach episode for the same reason, though that only aired once in the US (and had chunks cut) and isn't available on Netflix.

    • Re:Push netflix to have adjustable resolution/qual (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:00PM (#52872849) Journal

      And also the ability to delay or offload content in cache. For example, if your bandwidth is currently funky (as is typical with oligopoly ISP's), then set the play to notify you when the download is complete or the buffer reaches a certain percent complete. A fuller menu would look something like:

      Bandwidth and Delay Options:
      Quality (higher quality may slow download):
          [x] Automatic
          [_] High-Definition [rate value here]
          [_] Medium [rate value here]
          [_] Low [rate value here]
          [_] Etc.
      Delayed Playback:
          [x] Don't play until buffer has ____ seconds of video [with a default but editable number]
          [_] Don't play until entire video is cached on your computer, Auto-Play
          [_] Don't play until entire video is cached on your computer, Pop-Up-Notification
          [_] Don't play until entire video is cached on your computer, No notification (click video window to play when "Ready" indicated)

      But companies can argue these kind of options are too confusing to most consumers. Maybe a good UI designer could make them friendlier...

    • They should give you what they sold you (Score:4, Informative)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:02PM (#52872869) Homepage
      I don't object to data caps per se, but I expect the ISP to give you what they sold you. If they sold you a plan with no data cap, they should provide access with no data cap.

      Adjustable quality would be a nice user control to have, if you're paying for bandwidth, you should be able to decide how much bandwidth to use on what downloads.

      • However... If you are paying for a consumer line vs a commercial line.
        The Business line for 30mbs may cost $120.00 a month vs. the Consumer Line for 30mbs may be $80.00 per month.

        What is the difference if it is the same speed. The difference is the Business line expects 24 nearly optimal usage of the connection, while the Consumer LIne expectes 4 or 5 hours a day of streaming traffic. So because of this price difference that is why the companies feel justify to throttle your speed if you use too much. T

      • Umm...what if every plan they sell, despite it being a wired service that costs $60-$100 a month, has a data cap...

        ISPs have a de facto monopoly. Even if in theory another company could rip up everyone's yard and install a new set of wires, it almost never happens (and usually the local government wouldn't give a permit in any case).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The kids don't need to watch Pokemon in 4K!

      "Pixellated indistinct blobs, gotta catch em all!"

    • The key problems with Data Caps is the fact the business cannot keep up with the technology.

      20 years ago 50 Megs data cap was more than enough for most dial up users.
      10 years ago 5 Gigs data cap was more than enough for most broadband users.
      Today 50 Gigs data cap is currently what is considered decent for home use.

      For the most part our behavior hasn't changed that much, we more or less download data 2 hours a day. However as speed increases the amount of data we download increases.

      In terms of stream quality

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by pteddy ( 4137621 )
      They already to. You can select your default playback quality in user settings.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by I4ko ( 695382 )
      ctrl+shift+D and select the quality(bitrate) that you want. You can even select multiple. It has been possible since 5 years ago.

    • Really they should be pushing it as an anti-trust issue. The same companies implwmenting the caps have a vested interest in their own video platforms, be it cable or Internet based.

  • At&t doesn't even try to pretend it isnt extor (Score:5, Informative)

    by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @01:47PM (#52872763)
    Their official policy is that you have to pay them for TV no matter what. Either you subscribe to TV, or your internet connection is capped, and you will pay them for TV anyway in the form of overages.

    Seemed like a pretty good plan "Lets punish consumers and make them pay for our ill-conceived acquisition of Direct TV"

    Gee, I wonder why they are losing subscribers.

    • Re:At&t doesn't even try to pretend it isnt ex (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stinerman ( 812158 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @01:52PM (#52872803)

      This will be a continuing problem so long as the people who own the infrastructure also sell services over it.

      They almost got this right with the ILEC/CLEC split with DSL. The only problem is that they let the ILEC sell services over the infrastructure they owned.

      Don't let the guys who own the wires sell any services and this problem will fix itself.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        Take it a step further and make "the wires" a public utility company, or at least the last mile, which is where the natural monopoly lives.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eth1 ( 94901 )

        This will be a continuing problem so long as the people who own the infrastructure also sell services over it.

        They almost got this right with the ILEC/CLEC split with DSL. The only problem is that they let the ILEC sell services over the infrastructure they owned.

        Don't let the guys who own the wires sell any services and this problem will fix itself.

        And don't let anyone who owns wires or provides service also create/sell content.

    • When I turned my Uverse equipment in, the guy at the UPS store and I had a good laugh about the huge surge of AT&T equipment getting turned in. I was content with my 12Mb/s internet. It wasn't the fastest, but it was fine. Now I have 50Mb/s cable with a $4/month VPN service and things have been running great for a few months now.

      Its costing me less, and I'm getting better service. I should actually be thanking AT&T for making me get off my ass and finally switch.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Which VPN service are you using?

      • When I turned my Uverse equipment in, the guy at the UPS store and I had a good laugh about the huge surge of AT&T equipment getting turned in. I was content with my 12Mb/s internet. It wasn't the fastest, but it was fine. Now I have 50Mb/s cable with a $4/month VPN service and things have been running great for a few months now.

        Its costing me less, and I'm getting better service. I should actually be thanking AT&T for making me get off my ass and finally switch.

        It's pretty bad when cellular service actually offers better service than landline. I know of at least 3 people (including myself) who completely ditched both dsl and cable because I can get faster, cheaper, and more reliable internet using a hotspot in my home.

  • the whole point of ISP mergers was to create larger networks that bypass Level 3 and other backbone carriers. And with everyone hosting content inside the ISP's own networks or at major peering centers then this traffic should be excluded at the very least.

    or at the very least create something like T-Mobile's BingeOn where 720p and below isn't counted

    • Re:no caps on internal or CDN traffic (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:03PM (#52873449)

      I kinda wish it was like the old days of dialup.
      You have two bills.
      1 for the Infrastructure (Telephone Line)
      1 for your ISP

      The problem now is they are both the same... I should be able to say choose from Cable/Satellite/Cell/Fiber Optic. Pay x per month for the infrastructure which has its fixed peak speeds.
      Then you choose your ISP, who pays so much for caps or no caps, IP Address... Email and any other feature you want and don't want.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by 4pins ( 858270 )
        I disagree. Whenever I had this setup (split infrastructure and internet providers) and I would run into a problem, both providers would just point the finger at the other and do nothing. So I switched to a single company that was responsible for the entire service and they took care of the problem. I have found that having a single party that is responsible, is key to success in many aspects of life.

  • Channel saturation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Personally, if I'm sold a 30Mbps/5Mbps cable/dsl connection, I expect to be able to saturate that channel 24/7 if I want to. ISPs should provision accordingly.

    • Especially considering that it's not the old days, 50c a mbs is pretty easy to get for transit.

    • Personally, if I'm sold a 30Mbps/5Mbps cable/dsl connection, I expect to be able to saturate that channel 24/7 if I want to. ISPs should provision accordingly.

      Yes, the data cap equation should be pretty simple:

      (# of Bits Per Second)*(#of seconds per billing period)

      Which when (# bps) is set to what the customer is purchasing should be *impossible* for the customer to exceed.
      Further, the modems should report appropriate usage for the same billing period in a way that customers can verify (e.g measuring data going to the modem using a tool like OpenWRT's bandwidth measurements).

      • (# of Bits Per Second)*(#of seconds per billing period)

        Which when (# bps) is set to what the customer is purchasing should be *impossible* for the customer to exceed.

        You'll need to change it to seconds per billing period, plus 2. Plus one for potential rounding issues and plus one in case someone decides to throw in a leap second. (Leap days are predictable and work well with both 30-day and monthly billing cycles.)

      • Further, the modems should report appropriate usage for the same billing period in a way that customers can verify (e.g measuring data going to the modem using a tool like OpenWRT's bandwidth measurements).

        I ran into this problem when Comcast introduced data caps in my area. After about 9 months I started getting overages. But the data at my router showed we were not over.

        Because Comcast takes over the modem with their own locked-down configuration even if you own the modem, I couldn't figure out what was

    • Re:Channel saturation (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:35PM (#52873169)

      Personally, if I'm sold a 30Mbps/5Mbps cable/dsl connection, I expect to be able to saturate that channel 24/7 if I want to. ISPs should provision accordingly.

      You wouldn't be able to afford it if they did. A dedicated full-time 30/5 line to the border gateway would cost more than you want to pay. A line that you share with 100 other people is much cheaper.

      The caps are not put in place by ISPs to make people pay for TV as the summary claims. (Why would an ISP that has no video services at all have caps if that were truly the reason? What is T-Mobile's TV service?) They're put in place to keep people who think they ought to have 100% fulltime use of a shared resource from keeping other users from getting what they are paying for.

      • Re:Channel saturation (Score:5, Insightful)

        by YouGotTobeKidding ( 2884685 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @03:05PM (#52873467)
        Bullshit.
        They don't even want to OFFER it. Instead they rather play word games and sell idiots on the idea of 'unlimited'.

        Its either unlimited or its not. If its not DON'T CALL IT UNLIMITED.

        Would you let a car mfg'er claim your new car has 400horsepower when it has a fucking 30cc lawnmower engine in it? No. Because its call truth in advertising.

        • Bullshit. They don't even want to OFFER it.

          They know it would cost more than most people would want to pay, especially in the residential service market.

          Instead they rather play word games and sell idiots on the idea of 'unlimited'.

          Only an idiot thinks that any internet service is completely unlimited. When the context is such that a word cannot possibly have one common language meaning, it must mean something else. I mean, when you get a service that has LIMITS (e.g. 30Mbps down/5Mbps up), how can "unlimited" mean unlimited? Such a service has an implicit cap of 10Tb/month -- a limit that you will be hard pressed to exceed

      • Re:Channel saturation (Score:5, Informative)

        by HiThereImBob ( 3935253 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @08:51PM (#52875967)

        The caps are not put in place by ISPs to make people pay for TV as the summary claims. (Why would an ISP that has no video services at all have caps if that were truly the reason? What is T-Mobile's TV service?) They're put in place to keep people who think they ought to have 100% fulltime use of a shared resource from keeping other users from getting what they are paying for.

        So this is just about network management?

        Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity
        http://arstechnica.com/busines... [arstechnica.com]

        Another Broadband CEO Admits: Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Capacity
        https://consumerist.com/2016/0... [consumerist.com]

        Leaked Comcast memo reportedly admits data caps aren't about improving network performance
        http://www.theverge.com/smart-... [theverge.com]

        Comcast Admits Broadband Usage Caps Are A Cash Grab, Not An Engineering Necessity
        https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]

  • Netflix hates data caps. The on-demand movies and TV shows service has asked the US Federal Communications Commission to declare that home internet data caps are unreasonable

    The solution to a problem created by there being too much government regulation [wired.com] is more government regulation.

    A drug-addict's logic.

    • Except that the problem of cable companies abusing their customers was caused by deregulation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        the problem of cable companies abusing their customers was caused by deregulation.

        {Citation needed}. Fail.

      • They can abuse their customers because... gasp... they have a virtual monopoly granted by the government. Kill all the regs including last mile regs and the free market would kick the shit out of ATT and the other asshats.

        • So, you're suggesting that whoever manages to land their stormtroopers at the cable entrance sites and is faster to lay new troughs unhindered by zoning, construction permits, rights-of-way will be my next provider? What could possibly go wrong with that? :-)

        • They can abuse their customers because... gasp... they have a virtual monopoly granted by the government.

          No. Exclusive franchise laws have been illegal for a very long time. They have a defacto monopoly granted by the economics of competition, not by the government.

          Kill all the regs including last mile regs and the free market would kick the shit out of ATT and the other asshats.

          It wouldn't be a free market. One of the competitors is bound by a franchise agreement, the others would be free to cherry pick customers and services and avoid a lot of the costs.

        • I agree that municipalities giving companies a virtual monopoly should be illegal. But my locale has done no such laws and yet the Comcast/Verizon duopoly here is just annoying as when Comcast ran the whole thing.

          But you can't seriously believe that corporations will play fair once the regulations have been removed. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to roll out fiber/cable? Some upstart company isn't going to just show up and deploy when the existing monopolies/oligharchies will just drop their price

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Instead of more regulation or less regulation, perhaps *better* or *different* regulations are required.

    • Re:Using government to advance one's business (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:38PM (#52873191) Journal

      Oligopolies suffer from similar problems as "big gov't": not enough competition to give them incentive and to give consumers real choices. They historically almost always take advantage of insufficient competition to screw customers: Railroads, oil, cars, computers (IBM, MS), CPU's, telecoms, etc. have shown mass dickery under oligopolies or monopolies.

      If there were say 7 or more realistic ISP choices per typical customer, THEN competition could work its magic, Adam-Smith-style.

      The biggest road-block to more competition in my opinion is the "last mile problem". It's not realistic nor efficient for every competitor to run wires to every potential customer. It's the main reason Google is dropping out in many areas.

      If a gov't utility could set up "last mile" wiring, then multiple ISP's would only have to hook up to centralized routing nodes, not to each house. It's then just a switch. This could invite the competition needed to end most ISP BS such that regulators wouldn't have to get involved nearly as much.

      The right conditions have to be in place for capitalism to work right.

      • Oligopolies suffer from similar problems as "big gov't": not enough competition to give them incentive and to give consumers real choices.

        Full agreement.

        The biggest road-block to more competition in my opinion is the "last mile problem". It's not realistic nor efficient for every competitor to run wires to every potential customer.

        That's not true — "natural monopoly" is a myth [mises.org]. But do find citations supporting your assertion.

        It's the main reason Google is dropping out in many areas.

        Another unsubstantiated claim. Google Fiber was meant to run all of the "last miles" from the get-go — it was not something they realized they have to do later. I explain their lack of wide-spread success by the above-referenced regulation of local governments, but you are welcome to offer citations supporting your assertion(s). Meanwhile, I offer this map [google.com] as evidence supporting my assertion. They are already offered in the "redneck" parts of the country like Salt Lake City, Charlotte, and Kansas City, while the corrupt locales like Chicago — despite having many more thickly-settled (and thus easy-to-wire) would-be customers — are merely "being explored".

        If a gov't utility could set up "last mile" wiring, then [...]

        Then instead of the poorly-competing oligopoly, we'll have a bona-fide monopoly — with government policing the Internet traffic. Today I can switch from FiOS to Comcast in a matter of days should I decide to. Bringing about a change to the government-owned service will require months and years of raising awareness and electioneering.

        The right conditions have to be in place for capitalism to work right.

        Absence of wrong conditions is sufficient.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          If a gov't utility could set up "last mile" wiring, then [...]

          Then instead of the poorly-competing oligopoly, we'll have a bona-fide monopoly -- with government policing the Internet traffic.

          Why must the organization that owns and maintains the physical wires also control the traffic that runs across the wire?

          • Why must the organization that owns and maintains the physical wires also control the traffic that runs across the wire?

            It may not have to. But it will — because that's the nature of government.

            For example, AT&T "NSA closet" [wikipedia.org] will seem quaint, once all traffic passes government-owned wires. Censoring content crossing government-owned equipment will also become much easier — seriously, would somebody, please, think of the children?! And, yeah, encryption is legal, but, if you use it on publicly-owned wires, the government must be able to decrypt it. And only government-approved (and registered) equipment can be thus connected too. Hasn't the sorry story of public roads taught you anything? Do you think, Internet-access license and uniquely-identifying IDs for your computer(s) will be far behind?

            And, of course, instead of violating Terms of Service, (ab)users will be violating laws — feds are already seeking to "curb trolling" [slashdot.org], owning the last mile to every house will allow them to act on that urge.

            No, thanks.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by klui ( 457783 )

              > Hasn't the sorry story of public roads taught you anything?

              Like the sorry state of telco copper?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          That's not true -- "natural monopoly" is a myth.

          That's mostly based on anecdotes, and we don't know how many counter-anecdotes were excluded from that article just by reading it.

          with government policing the Internet traffic

          Please elaborate.

          Today I can switch from FiOS to Comcast in a matter of days should I decide to.

          And what if they BOTH suck? That's the situation our family finds ourselves in. We've tried both ISP's available in our area, and are highly dissatisfied with both, but there are no viable alt

          • Both ISPs?

            Try living in an area where you had two choices but choice one just bought choice two and then a year later shut down choice two.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Tablizer ( 95088 )

              For a short while we had 3, but then one bought #3 out and we were back to 2. I was just about to mail the contract also, singing to myself, "Sayonara you stinkin duopolies!". Then heard about the merger on the news on the way to work. Doh! I wish the regulators stopped that merger.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mi ( 197448 )

              Try living in an area where you had two choices but choice one just bought choice two and then a year later shut down choice two.

              I've already cited an article [wired.com], where the blame for this sorry state of the ISP-market is laid squarely on the local governments.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mi ( 197448 )

            That's mostly based on anecdotes

            Compared to the striking lack of citations in your posts, I think, my arguments are much better substantiated.

            Please elaborate.

            Oh, please. Do you really have no imagination? here [slashdot.org]...

            And what if they BOTH suck?

            Duopoly is likely to suck, yes. But not as badly as a monopoly. When I signed for FiOS six years ago, I chose 35Mbps up and down. Today I'm getting 75Mbps up and down for the same monthly fee. Name me a government-provided service, that can boast such an improvement in va

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Tablizer ( 95088 )

              Re: "Please elaborate." - Oh, please. Do you really have no imagination?

              That's about snooping. Diff issue, and probably orthogonal to who "owns" the wires.

              Soviet Estonia vs. Finland;
              Eastern Germany vs. Western
              North Korea vs. South

              Oh please! Those are non-democracies. Lack of democracy will screw up ANY system: capitalism, socialism, gerbilism, etc.

              The best systems appear to mixed systems. Too much capitalism or too much socialism shows the worse results. Capitalism can fly higher, but then often crashes do

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Addendum

          You also seem to be confusing "socialism" with "crony capitalism". A good many competition-killing laws are bribed into place by established companies trying to keep out new competition.

          You seem to be implying that all bad laws in place are from socialists or those with socialist ideals, which is often not the case.

          I agree that crony capitalism laws are usually bad. However, nobody has found a side-effect-free way to fix that problem, especially on the local level. I'm all ears...

        • Uh...is road building a natural monopoly? Your source isn't credible. It's clear and obvious that the very laws of physics create situations where a single firm can occupy the only feasible way to accomplish a task.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mi ( 197448 )

            Uh...is road building a natural monopoly?

            Not in the general case. For example, Tokyo has competing subway/commuter rail lines in the city. Why can't Manhattan?

            For another example, there are multiple ways to drive from Boston to NYC — why can't those multiple roads compete with each other? I-95 can emphasize quality facilities, while the Merritt Parkway/I-91 combo could advertise being scenic. In their effort to attract more customers, they may push for higher speed-limit — and eliminate police

            • He's not a credible economist if thousands of other credible economists, basically all of them, disagree with him.

              Your rant defies the laws of physics, as I said. Your examples are stupid. It's bleedingly obvious to anyone but you that (1) even if there are a few different road routes, they are all saturated, so you just have an oligopoly at best. Ditto the cabling problem.

              You're not a nerd, you're an idiot. Get off slashdot.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bengie ( 1121981 )
              Incorrect comparison. I have exactly one road connected to my drive way. Whomever owns that has a natural monopoly. A subway is more like a bus than a road.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dywolf ( 2673597 )

              he is in no way a credible economist.
              he is a quack, a racist who is part the Mises institutes efforts to unite pro-monarchism with southern white resentment, a man who believes slavery should be legal because "free market", and an apologist for big industry whether its denying that tobacco causes cancer or that fossil fuels have contributed mightily to global warming.

              he is only acclaimed by fellow quacks with no connection to reality...which explains your admiration.

              and as for natural monopolies, and yes, r

        • That's not true — "natural monopoly" is a myth. But do find citations supporting your assertion.

          Other responders have already mentioned roads. The other obvious response is water and sewers. Water (and sewage) flows downhill. Every sewage system in the world for the past 2000 years has been engineered to take advantage of this fact. Taking into account the position of structures on the terrain, there is generally one and only one reasonably downhill path for water and sewer. Once that route is occupied, it is physically impossible to add a second independent system. The second system would have

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Strider- ( 39683 )

        If there were say 7 or more realistic ISP choices per typical customer, THEN competition could work its magic, Adam-Smith-style.

        Call me a raging socialist, but what I would rather have is municipal/PUD fiber run to the homes, and then be able to select the service provider that uses the publicly owned infrastructure. This works very well in Chelan and Douglas counties in WA. The PUDs there run the fiber, and look after the physical plant, and then the residents of the counties can buy service from any one of several different ISP and TV providers. Additionally, if you're a commercial setup, you can get transit from Level 3 and/or Za

  • Centrylink DSL: 250GiB cap
    Centrylink Fiber: uncapped

    Other than the last-mine of data transfer, it is the same Centrylink back-haul network. So why does one get capped (who can and does use significantly more bandwidth) versus the slower connection that is easier manage and do shared provisioning for?

    WALP, whatever their weird justifications, I'm currently pushing ~1TiB/week on my CL Fiber line from torrent seeding. It would be more, but torrents only go as fast as the other end is willing to download.

  • My wife and I live alone and we use 600 - 1000 GB a month. And that is a month where I don't boot up an old computer and install/update hundreds of steam games. I can't imagine what would happen to my internet bill if comcast decided to enforce a data cap.

    • i use 300GB in a busy month. some of us have better things to do than watch TV for hours per day and don't really care if you have to pay overages

      • You assume incorrectly that it is televised content. I work in the IT sector and have multiple remote desktop / teamviewer / logmein sessions open at any one time. It quickly adds up.

  • If people only knew... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:04PM (#52872889)

    If people only knew how little it costs per household for ISPs to provide cable TV and internet service! While no real figures are published, by some estimates it costs most ISPs less than $15.00 a month per household to provide both broadband Internet and cable TV, in some cases less than half of that figure.

    Not only should the FCC remove all data caps, prices for broadband Internet service, and cable TV should be capped at $29.95 per month each. Our taxes have paid for the infrastructure for these services, yet we are massively price gouged for these services. One reason that this price gouging goes on is that ISPs have managed to stifle any hint of competition in most locations in the U.S., even buying draconian laws against cities that wish to provide their citizens with reasonably prices broadband Internet and Cable TV services.

    I would also like to see the FCC mandate that as long as costumers are paying for their cable TV service, it should be commercial free, as we were promised at the very beginning of cable TV roll-outs!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by klui ( 457783 )

      My ISP's CEO, a relatively small one compared to the incumbents, has stated their data transit costs between 2007-2012 was 1-2% of their total cost and data transport costs are dropping faster than Moore's law because fiber capacity has been doubling every 9 months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bengie ( 1121981 )
        The 9 month doubling doesn't even include long haul fiber speed increases, which has been more like 10x per year, not 2.

    • I would also like to see the FCC mandate that as long as costumers are paying for their cable TV service, it should be commercial free, as we were promised at the very beginning of cable TV roll-outs!

      I wish I knew where that completely nonsensical claim keeps coming from. Cable TV was NEVER promised to be commercial free, since cable TV STARTED as a means of distributing COMMERCIAL BROADCAST (i.e. advertising supported) channels without everyone needing to install their own antennas. It was later that the satellite networks came about, and many of them were also advertising supported -- from the very beginning of their existence.

      Cable TV, with the exception of PEG and local origination channels, carri

  • Monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:20PM (#52873007)

    Given that Comcast enjoys government granted monopolies in its markets, it seems reasonable for the government to require them to remove data caps.

    Of course, the better approach would be to tell Comcast fine, charge whatever you like, but we're going to open all of your markets to competition.

    • Given that Comcast enjoys government granted monopolies in its markets,

      Citation required. Where is there an exclusive franchise? They're illegal in the US, so you must be talking about outside the US -- where Comcast isn't.

      but we're going to open all of your markets to competition.

      That's already happened. It's not a valid threat. There are no franchises for ISPs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bengie ( 1121981 )
        They play games with the laws. There is no exclusive franchise, but they do make right of way laws that make the barrier to entry incredibly high. AT&T successfully sued my state government to disallow ISPs access to right of way easements. But you ask, isn't AT&T an ISP? Nope, they're a telcom, completely different. They offer internet services, but they are not an "ISP" by right of way definition. Funny how that works. AT&T wasn't alone in suing the government, so "cable" companies also have a

  • Time-of-use data caps make sense... (Score:3)

    by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Monday September 12, 2016 @02:29PM (#52873083) Journal

    ...because people tend to max out their bandwidth all at the same time during the day, creating a headache for network data management. To encourage people to schedule their torrents to throttle back during the day, ISPs should make their data caps only apply during peak usage periods, similar to "unlimited nights and weekends" cell phone plans.

    There's a service called NightShift [gonightshift.com] that helps people watch Netflix on bandwidth-constrained connections like dialup. It works by scheduling downloads to occur overnight so they're ready to watch the next day. Netflix could do something similar to bypass time-of-use data caps. "Do you wish to stream this program now or download to watch later? [Stream] [Download]" Then the ISPs might realize that the data caps don't need to apply to overnight downloads.

  • NetFlix has no hope here.

    They did not pay as much for the FCC Chairman as the cable companies did. The cable companies bought him fair and square.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Have you been paying attention to the goings-on of the FCC lately? To everyone's surprise, Tom Wheeler has been anything but a cable company shill.

  • would be the FTC (Fereral Trade commission) and ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission). They were both set up to deal with the same issue decades ago... Fair pricing for carriage of "goods". In this case the good are packets and then it was beef and grain on the railroads, but the ISPs (carriers of goods) are acting not, like the railroad did then. Similar issues should be solvable by similar means

  • Why does Netflix have a limit of concurrent streams and they charge more for more streams? If Netflix is serious about having various levels of service at different prices is unacceptable Netflix should lead the way by going to a single fixed price for all customers.

    4K or not, any number of concurrent streams, etc. It all could be the same price.

    The reason why it isn't is the same reason ISPs don't charge everyone the same price. You can make more money by offering differentiated services at different price

    • Actually, a stream limit is the same thing as a bandwidth limit. Netflix is fine with bandwidth limits. It is not fine with data CAPS. There's a big difference. By analogy, if Netflix were doing the same thing, they would impose a limit on the total amount of Netflix you are allowed to stream in a given month. As long as you stay under the stream limit, you can watch every stream 24/7x30 per their rules...

  • It's not because of network congestion. The reason for data caps is to limit how much you can stream. But if there isn't a congestion issue, they why limit streaming?

    Ta da . . .

    In order to charge money on the other end to streaming providers to be "Zero Rated".

    Basically because they have a monopoly on the last mile and want to exploit it.

    Whoever will pay the biggest amount to "partner" with the ISP for Zero Rating will get all of their streaming through without trouble.

    If data caps went away

    • It's not because of network congestion. The reason for data caps is to limit how much you can stream.

      Were that true, why do caps apply to all data and not just streaming data?

      In order to charge money on the other end to streaming providers to be "Zero Rated".

      If you are referring to Binge On from T-Mobile, I don't recall seeing anything in the T-Mobile documentation on that service that talks about charges to the streaming providers.

      If data caps went away, then Zero Rating would simply not exist.

      If data caps went away, then everyone would have to pay the same rate for service they may not want to pay for. I'm happy with the capped data for my phones and don't want to pay more for data service I wouldn't use. You want 100GB/m for your phone, that's fin

  • ISP perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pcjunky ( 517872 ) <walterp@cyberstreet.com> on Monday September 12, 2016 @08:42PM (#52875933) Homepage

    I own an ISP (WISP) that is virtually the only option outside of the two large incumbent carriers, Centrylink and Comast that residential users have. The other CLECs mainly, if not exclusively, sell commercial service. We have seen in the last 5 years demand for bandwidth increase nearly 500% mostly due to video streaming. The cost of the fiber and equipment has come down to be sure, but no where near 500%. So far we have been able to keep providing an essentially unlimited service. However if current trends continue, I'm not sure for how much longer.

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