X_Digit
Binary Enhanced
Premium
join:2003-06-12
Mansfield, TX
| Bullshit...
"ISPs, who have increasingly struggled with these users, first stopped advertising their services as unlimited (if they were smart)."
Bullshit... we're all already accustomed to the way the internet works now. They start cutting back or billing per byte, I can guarantee a backlash! Look at all the shit Comcast gets now... they start restricting or cutting back too much, people will start to find their own ways around it. |
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swintec
Premium
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME | Woo-Hooo
"Until then, Bon Appetit."
I'll download to that!  |
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robertfl
Premium
join:2005-10-10
Mary Esther, FL
 ·Cox VOIP
| Not going to happen
People will not be able to afford Internet if this happens. Look at what AUSSIE ISPS are doing and how many people there are on dial up because of the strict caps they have.
ISP's are greedy and don't care ENOUGH about their RES customers. If they did, better tech support, better "security" software and better FIOS like speeds.
It's bad enough Comcrap has invisible caps and now this??
Let's focus on the problems such as zombie computers sending spam to the masses and using that bandwidth.
That's what uses a lot of the bandwidth in the first place. If a customer wants to download LINUX, he/she should be able to without fear of being charged by the bite.
If ISP's want to preserve their bandwidth, EDUCATE the end user about internet safety and warn them that a computer can be used without their permission.
/me wonders
-Rob |
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Maggs
Premium
join:2002-11-29
Woodside, NY
 ·RCN CABLE
| What about pings, packet storms and Cable modem data
On cable, I'm on a shared network and the packets pass to each modem, why should I be billed for the search and destroy method of cable. They would have to totally re engineer their networks to accommodate this on a grand scale, and imagine the logs the techs would have to deal with.
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Inside Cube Hell! |
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MrMoody
Carbon Based Lifeform
join:2002-09-03
Smithfield, NC
 ·Embarq
·Skype
·magicjack.com
| Oink Oink
Bandwidth hogs can help preserve/extend the status quo AND show their neighbors some consideration by refraining from hogging activities between 3 PM and midnight ... it's not the total that's killing the ISPs, it's the peak.
Megabyte from a troglodyte, LOL.
J6P: "What's this charge on my bill for these extra jigger bites?!"
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"It is a future in which globalization really does work ... and everybody winds up getting to be part of the third world." - William Gibson |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
|  Is there competition or not ?
I get a kick out of reading the pundits who are saying COMPETITION will prevent ISPs from going to a per byte pricing model in one article.
And the very next week whining incessantly in another article about how there is no competition in the industry and that government must step in to force competition.
Well which is it? Is there competition or not? If there isn't competition(as we constantly read here and elsewhere), then all this talk about how a per byte model is impossible is pure BS.
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Internet News
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA | reply to Maggs
Re: What about pings, packet storms and Cable modem data
The (usually encrypted) packets do pass to each modem, but it's not exactly hard to track usage to a specific IP address.
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Laser eye surgery rocks! I love frickin' laser beams. |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| reply to X_Digit
Re: Bullshit...
said by X_Digit  :"ISPs, who have increasingly struggled with these users, first stopped advertising their services as unlimited (if they were smart)." Bullshit... we're all already accustomed to the way the internet works now. They start cutting back or billing per byte, I can guarantee a backlash! Look at all the shit Comcast gets now... they start restricting or cutting back too much, people will start to find their own ways around it. Oooh god forbid bandwidth hog leaves his ISP. I'm sure they would really hate for that to happen. |
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S_engineer
join:2007-05-16
Chicago, IL
·Comcast
| reply to X_Digit
I agree to a certain degree. The customers they lose will then be paid for by the unfortunate customers that are forced to stay. ISPs will always figure out formulas that will elevate your price...your price will never decline!
Ask this of your ISP...since they claim that the 5% of people that are "bandwidth hogs" account for 50 % of usage, will the new proposed price structure include lower fees for the ones that use minimal bandwidth?
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Burn a tire, but make sure you buy that carbon offset! |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| reply to robertfl
Re: Not going to happen
said by robertfl :People will not be able to afford Internet if this happens. If you're not a hog nothing will change for you. If you are one, don't expect pity from me beause you can no longer to aford to download your illegal copies of movies that are still in theaters and music and tv shows you didn't pay for. |
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amungus
Premium
join:2004-11-26
America
clubs:
| reply to Maggs
Re: What about pings, packet storms and Cable modem data
Well said.
Personally, I think it should all be unlimited, at whatever 'speed' package you opt for.
A person on DSL "lite" (~512-768kbps) should be able to use that available line at ALL times, at full blast. Same goes for the person on turbo cable - it should be available at ALL times, full blast.
The problem is that people are used to thinking in terms of a circuit switched network - that is, if they can talk all day and all night on their phone, that the same rules should apply to their internet service as well. People generally believe that if they're paying for "always on" "broadband" service, that it should damn well be available at ALL times, at full speed.
Not that everyone is constantly doing that, but the notion remains that they should be able to, should they so desire.
Before all the "get a business line" people come around, let me also point out that such plans come with much more than simply guaranteed levels of bandwidth - SLA's, multiple IP addresses, and more expensive equipment to connect all of it.................
Another problem is that now we have such connections at our disposal. Ten years ago, every home user had dialup, some had ISDN, but most of those home users at ~53kbps could be online all day, all night - nobody cared. If you paid for unlimited dialup, you got just that - un-fraking-limited dialup. Sure, it'd disconnect randomly, and could be troublesome to reconnect during busy times, but generally, I don't recall anyone being upset about "bandwidth hogs"
That system worked pretty well, and bandwidth was still oversold sometimes, but overall, dialup users could expect that their ISP would leave them alone. Nobody cared. You could download all day and all night at ~53kbps, no problem.
(A)DSL, since it runs on dedicated circuits, is generally also much more suited to be used constantly. Bandwidth may be oversold, but in theory, users should still be able to get full speed all day long. It also seems that you sure don't hear much about DSL providers "capping" people......
Either way, people expect that their line should work at full blast, all the time. That's just how it's been ingrained into their minds because that's how it's worked in the past.
It's not up to US to change, it's up to the ISP's. They should be able to handle it, or they should change their packages - simple as that. Either offer a faster package, and be prepared to handle it, or keep your speeds the same until the infrastructure (and money flow) can handle it...
Obviously, even DSLR links that most ISP's are doing fine! If they're doing fine, they've likely also been keeping up with upgrading their equipment. Whether that's to handle more users, more speed, or both doesn't matter. What matters is that they've had the ability to do either or both, and it's their network to do with what they will.
If they can't understand that most people have it in their head the way they do, then perhaps they should invest a little money in surveying people.....
Fortunately, it appears that this article confirms that most people don't want anything like a "pay per byte" plan, and for many good reasons  |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
·DSL EXTREME
| reply to TKJunkMail
Re: Is there competition or not ?
In general, it would come down to pricing...
Eg. If Cable offered $30/month for a 6 Mbps tier for the first 10GB and 768kbps after that per month... would people use it?
This would be compared to the standard $55/month package for 6Mbps unlimited (essentially a 'powerboost' to the low end 768kbps tier). I think you might get a lot of people going for it.
The problem is typically that Cable doesn't want to have its price lowered.., and would rather give 16Mbps for $65 and then cap it at 100GB.
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Canada = Hollywood North |
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Maggs
Premium
join:2002-11-29
Woodside, NY | If they do...
I'm promptly dropping my internet connection in favor of dialup. I use about 30GB a month and at a penny per kb it gets expensive.
1,024kb = 1MB * 1024MB = 1 GB =
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Inside Cube Hell! |
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N10Cities
SILENCE I Keel You
Premium
join:2002-05-07
Roland, OK
clubs:
·Cox HSI
·World Lynx
| reply to BF69
Re: Not going to happen
 Just because someone downloads a lot doesn't necessarily make them a pirate. Linux ISOs for example...download quite a few of them myself....
If Cox started charging by the bit for anyone, I would be one of the first to pull the plug and forget about internet access, period.... |
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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·Comcast
| reply to Maggs
Re: If they do...
said by Maggs :I'm promptly dropping my internet connection in favor of dialup. I use about 30GB a month and at a penny per kb it gets expensive. 1,024kb = 1MB * 1024MB = 1 GB = That won't be the pricing model.
It will be much more likely priced tiers by data transferred instead of speeds.
For example:
$42.95 flat rate up to 50 GB/mo
$52.95 flat rate up to 100 GB/mo
$72.95 flat rate up to 150 GB/mo
and the more bandwidth is consumed, the tier prices won't be going up in a straight line. But will go up on ever steeper curve.
$112.95 flat rate up to 200 GB/mo
$172.95 flat rate up to 250 GB/mo
etc.
etc.
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Internet News
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techjoe
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Schererville, IN
1 edit | Wow
Well I honestly didn't read the entire article but I do know this: ISPs will not reduce the cost of service for the average users, they'll just increase their average profit margin on each customer if they cut off (or drive away) the "power users".
I'm 100% against metered bandwidth. What's to stop me from sending you data you never asked for? Not even DoS, imagine cases to where some evil person decided to send a trickle of data constantly to you, masked as something as silly as an HTTP response you never requested? Or after-scatter of bittorrent traffic, or a misconfigured server spewing crap at your IP instead of the intended address? There's a zillion cases to where "bogus" inbound traffic can get received. SPAM even! What if the user has a POP account and PC-level anti-spam? You're paying for spam then too. That's like having to pay postage on the junk postal mail when it arrives in your mailbox. It's hilariously not logical and is doomed to failure.
I use a metered line from time to time and we'll have a metered burst on our new pipe at work. However, they offer fast reaction access to have upstream filtering put in place and offer us protection from unwanted traffic. Do you think the ISPs can actually offer DDoS filtering, customizable firewalling, advanced route troubleshooting, all that crap to the average users? No, right? Well how can they ensure that the users only have the traffic they asked for then?
It's just the wrong way to go. I wouldn't object heavily to (ab)users getting disconnected for excess usage, however those limits and terms need to be made clear at sign-up and not be generically termed as "reasonable" and "not reasonable" usage.
I'm one of those high-bandwidth evil hogs that uses what's available when I want to, too. I've never had the lowest tier of service no matter what service I had, if higher tiers were available. I would be ticked if I was disconnected for my usage sure, I have to be honest, but it is not MY system and if they don't want my monthly fees (and the associated usage) well more power to them. Again though, those limits should be made clear AT LEAST in any contract-based agreement.......
/soapbox
edit: Wouldn't it be easier to sit down and crunch some numbers on what the usage limits should be, than to switch to metered service? Me thinks one of them makes the ISP more money.... 
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www.clanc.cc |
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bmn
? ? ?
Premium,ExMod 2003-06
join:2001-03-15
hiatus
| The problem with metered service...
The main problem with metered service is that it is going to cause the internet to stagnate, not die, just stagnate. The "unlimited" service model is what has allowed for things like online music stores (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.), user generated content (Deviant Art, LiveJournal, etc), online gaming, VoIP, and whole lot of other applications to develop. The demand for broadband was create BY the fact that people no longer had to worry about being connected too long/using too much.
By switching to a pay per byte model, the model of the internet that has emerged, a bazaar that everyone can interact within, disappears. The demand for these new services that have pushed the internet forward will wain.
Pay per byte doesn't really make sense in well connected nations like Japan, Korea, the US, Canada, and the whole of Europe. The only reason places like Australia are putting up with it is because of the shady dealings of companies that are providing those places with connectivity to the rest of the world.
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Prove it...
Save the Internet Time (NTP) service, use the pool. |
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bmn
? ? ?
Premium,ExMod 2003-06
join:2001-03-15
hiatus
| reply to TKJunkMail
Re: Is there competition or not ?
I think the complaint is a lack of competition based on the idea that more competition in services is better than less.
Yes, there is competition between the three main ways of getting broadband (four in some places) - MSOs, ILECs, Satellite (and in some places, wireless), but more would be much better.
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Prove it...
Save the Internet Time (NTP) service, use the pool. |
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ftthz
If love can kill hate can also save
join:2005-10-17 | reply to TKJunkMail
Re: If they do...
at those prices you quoted I'd easily get a server at colo with a TB or 2 at 100mbits... geez |
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