Broadband Prices Dropping, Just Not For You > Prices Going Down?

Prices Going Down?

As did mine.

Though in some areas cable appears to actually be cheaper in the US than abroad. $90 for 50 Mbps (Lafayette), $116 for 50 Mbps (Comcast DOCSIS 3), $50 for 15 Mbps (TWC in the Austin/San Antonio area). So cable pricing isn't bad int eh US as long asthe internet availability is good enough and caps aren't high enough to discourage yu from using the internet.

On the fiber side of things, yes it's more expensive than the subsidized stuff in Europe, unless we're talking about Lafayette. In which case it's about the same. Anyhow, I'll take my 20 Mbps symmetric FiOS for $60 per month ($3 per Mbit, they say) because it has 20 Mbps of upstream speed. So you could say it's 40 Mbps up + down, or $1.50 per Mbit. Yay!

reply to perki
What difference does it make if the ISP increases bandwidth but creates data caps? If they only want customers who do not use the lines to their capacity, what's the difference between a 6MBS and a 50MBS connection? Most sites cannot fully utilize a 6MBS connections. I'd expect that for browsing that not even 1.5MBS is normally achieved.

For average users -- all of the increases in bandwidth mean nothing but higher prices. For those who could use the higher bandwidth -- the caps eliminate the usefulness. The bandwidth touted by the ISP's seems more for marketing purposes -- especially the burst bandwidth stuff like powerboost. It makes it appear like the ISP is giving us something to justify price increases until you actually try and use it. Caps, filtering, metered billing, etc -- I'd rather have lower max bandwidth and lower pricing without any of this other nonsense.

What difference does the speed make when 99% of users never use in excess of 20Mbps?

What is your peak data rate?

What is the average PEAK data rate for cable users?

cw

reply to RR User
Why have caps if they do nothing to manage network congestion during peak hours?

Also, a very small minority of users subscribe to the higher pricing tiers. Most pay for the lowest tier. Those "abusers of the tubes" already pay a premium for their higher data rates, meaning they're being gouged on the caps.