Topic 'Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.' in forum '' - dslreports.com

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:05:22 EDT

anon posted : theres not a 10GB cap, it ranges from 10-30...and even if you go over on that its on $10/GB after that

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:55:05 EDT

anon posted : FIOS is a land based service where you have a cable coming to your house from the street. This service is entirely wirelessly connected to the network. You're not comparing apples to apples when you mention FIOS. However, I do agree with the posts about the costs of this. Verizon offers their home phone (connect) service for $20/monthly for unlimited use. It's also connected in the home, wirelessly, just like this Home Fusion product, using the Verizon network.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:07:54 EDT

travelguy posted : [

said by anon222 :

what the poster is getting at is the only cost that increases for Verizon is the cost of transfered bytes for said customer and the cost is very low for them.

What law requires that selling price be based on marginal cost?

Consider toll roads - If one additional vehicle goes across the road, do their costs increase? Should all the drivers get a rebate?

Consider airlines - If one more person gets on the plane, do their costs increase? Should that person fly free or all the other passenger tickets be reduced?

Pricing is based purely on what a person is willing to pay. If that covers costs plus a profit over the long term, then the business will continue. If not, it will shut down.

The primary flaw with cost plus pricing is that there is zero incentive to reduce the cost. If you know you are always going to get a certain percentage, why would you ever spend any money on improving what you are selling?

Profit is the motivation to invest. High profits attract competitors which drive prices down. Ultimately, the consumer can just say no and drive the company out of business. How's that for power?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:52:38 EDT

45612019 posted : No.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:15:56 EDT

Crookshanks posted :

said by 45612019:

I'd rather my connection drop down to half its speed during peak hours than be artificially limited to only using it for a tiny fraction of my billing period.

Do the rest of us get a vote? You know, those of us who need to occasionally download something big and whom aren't looking to use LTE as a replacement for purpose-designed video delivery systems?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:43:46 EDT

anon posted : That is a nice set of examples but you left out the fact that those costs don't increase once someone hit a magic number of GB's. You think tech support starts making a higher hourly wage or suddenly hires more people when you hit a certain GB? Think their employee insurance rates go up once I hit 10GB? lol They aren't increasing their backhual if they are rate limiting. Not one thing you listed goes up in cost when a user hits a magic number at which time they are exorbitantly charged for overages. Yes it is their choice but what the poster is getting at is the only cost that increases for Verizon is the cost of transfered bytes for said customer and the cost is very low for them. Instead of throttling they will impose crazy fees to line their pockets and advertise stunning speeds without rate limits!

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:41:00 EDT

travelguy posted :

said by GroovyPhoenx:

It does, of course! It's called the price of doing business. Making a profit? No that's not a crime. Profeteering however is. and at the cost and even with a markup,

Really? Please cite the law that states that "profeteering", whatever that is, is illegal. Aside from a few state and local laws regarding pricing during or immediately after an emergency, I'm not aware of any.

said by GroovyPhoenx:

Just because someone CAN make that much a profit doesn't mean they SHOULD.

I think you might want to take a basic refresher course in economics. Just because someone can make a profit means they absolutely should. Those profits are turned around and spent on other products and services, which in turn puts other people to work and allows those business owners to make a profit.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:29:08 EDT

GroovyPhoenx posted : It does, of course! It's called the price of doing business. Making a profit? No that's not a crime. Profeteering however is. and at the cost and even with a markup, if the bandwidth cost and all those mentioned merited SOME markup it certainly shouldn't be from 10 cents to 10$! that's just ludicrous,

Just because someone CAN make that much a profit doesn't mean they SHOULD.

I can charge 100000000 to optimize a PC, but that doesn't mean I'll get it. Healthy competition keeps pries down, but companies like verizon etc don't want that to happen, instead those profit dollars are spent on big "donations" on senators/congressman to make sure they get their way. Hire more lobyists, and kill teh american economy. You want to blame folks for that? Blame moneygrubbing people who just think of the all mighty dolla.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:49:57 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by iFail 5G:

said by sonicmerlin:

said by iFail 5G:

Its a deal breaker for me not being able to take my boats out anytime I want, being able to ride my ATV wherever the hell I want, and depending on the gov. for every single thing. If the city water supply gets contaminated which has happened before, I still have sanitary, clean, well water.

You realize your lifestyle is subsidized by federal tax money taken from the cities? Rural states are like black holes when it comes to tax money. Their economies feed on the trough of the military industrial complex and give nothing in return.

Oh well, I make up for it with my income and my house in the city. My lifestyle out there is fantastic, especially the part about my redneck neighbor's with brand new Escalades and Silverado HD's that get 12MPG, and my Malibu boat that gets more of 5MPG. My blackhole of a community is very nice.

Yes... I know it is. But none of it would be possible without the cross subsidies that mostly blue states end up paying for rural states. The only exception is Texas. It's the only red state that actually provides more money in federal taxes to the government than it receives. IIRC California loses the most tax money to the government of all US states.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:46:45 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by iFail 5G:

Yea, I have had it for a while now and the speeds are great..

www.speedtest.net/android/155332153.png
www.speedtest.net/android/158265176.png

Jeez. That is cruddy fast. I hope Sprint comes in one day and offers their own unlimited LTE cantenna service.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:45:40 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by chances14:

said by 45612019:

Five times? Try 500 times.

If you believe Verizon is paying anything more than an average of 2 cents/gig for Internet traffic then you've been brainwashed.

can you give real, cold hard solid evidence to back that up that it only costs 2 cents a gig to deliver internet traffic or are you just doing what Karl does and guessing and making assumptions

This is from 2010: »www.dslprime.com/a-wireless-clou···gigabyte

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:44:29 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by iansltx:

It's harder to market a product with cap-free times, maybe?

If I was running a network with relatively low capacity at peak but low off-peak usage, I'd offer some sort of incentive for off-peak usage. Verizon not doing this (just like WildBlue has never done this) is there prerogative. HughesNet is the only major provider to offer a cap-free period in the US.

The reason they're not doing it is because they want to profit heartily off of idiots who don't know what a "cap" is. Provide people with the low latency and high bandwidth required to watch videos, and watch the overage profits pour in. They won't even considering just throttling users instead of overcharging them.

Off-peak hours makes perfect sense only if you don't care about maximizing profits at the expense of your customers. Throttling only on congested hours while offering unlimited is also quite possible, especially in these very sparsely populated rural areas.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:15:43 EDT

fiberguy posted : And I agree with you.. and I accept that. But the problem is that when they go beyond just a "thought" and try to push it out as a matter of fact.. that's where I will take on the debate.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:09:41 EDT

fiberguy posted : Well then shucks my darn! .. perhaps they should just say screw it and not serve those areas so that people like you won't bitch about it.

So far it doesn't seem that their pricing is far out of line over their other wireless pricing, now, does it? Wait.. it actually seems like this service is a bit better pricing than even their mobile LTE service.

Again.. what's the issue? .. I guess I can see where you're coming from. Punish them for bringing a new technology wireless service to an area with out anything really.. and damn them for charging a price YOU don't agree with.

Do you have a valid argument yet?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:53:27 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by sonicmerlin:

said by iFail 5G:

said by 45612019:

I like how Verizon is deploying this pointless shit instead of continuing to build a real broadband network like FiOS.

You can download more than 10 gigabytes in a month on dial up.

This isn't broadband. This is an abomination.

Clearly you have never lived in a rural area. Here in Birmingham where this is also one of their first markets for home fusion, a lot of rural areas can't even get LANDLINES. So the only option is is satellite which is horrible. This at least I pull down over 50mbit/s constantly.

Ill take the 10GB cap for usable service any day

So wait, you actually have the service and get 50 mbit/s?

Yea, I have had it for a while now and the speeds are great..

www.speedtest.net/android/155332153.png
www.speedtest.net/android/158265176.png

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:53:00 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by chances14:

nice rebuttal

pull out the politics card

since when are conservatives the only ones who live in rural areas anyways?

Since the only people living in dense urban area's are drug dealers or Yuppies!

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:52:18 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by Kearnstd:

I know my road will get plowed with in hours of a snow fall instead of weeks.

That's why I just bought a Subaru :)

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:49:53 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by shortyd999:

Why do people consider Birmingham "rural"? I mean its a city of at 200K+ people (i know thats not large but still sizable). Or are they referring to the surrounding area?

The city of Birmingham isn't really *rural*, but the communities in the Birmingham metro area where this service is offered are VERY rural, like western Jefferson county and Jasper county such as Oak Grove, Alliance, Oakman, West Jefferson, Parrish, and so forth. And south Shelby county where no broadband is available. I am in one of those situations with my lake house in western Jefferson county where AT&T only has EDGE 2G service, but Verizon has 4G LTE and this is a perfect situation for home fusion.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:47:02 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by sonicmerlin:

said by iFail 5G:

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:44:23 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by 45612019:

Five times? Try 500 times.

If you believe Verizon is paying anything more than an average of 2 cents/gig for Internet traffic then you've been brainwashed.

So how expensive is your wireless network, sign me up for your unlimited LTE :)

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:44:06 EDT

iFail 5G posted :

said by 45612019:

That post was unworthy of a rebuttal.

The minute someone starts harping about the government and stereotyping any civilized area as being some gang war shootout zone you know you're dealing with a conservative.

Right, a conservative. I have a house in Atlanta, GA. Not really the sticks, but I am smart and educated enough from living across the US and throughout England and Germany and know from experience what *big* nasty cities are like.

Sounds like your a liberal, crack smoking hippie if were going with stereo type's. Or since your from NY, your either a taxi cab driver or a drug dealing Apple fan :)

Seriously, don't stereotype someone living in a rural area conservative.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:50:09 EDT

mech1164 posted :

said by 45612019:

Oh that's a bunch of CR@P. It just shows your political leanings. You inferred they were conservative. Nothing that was said could be construed that way unless that's what you think all people think that way are that. You lost that argument before you even opened yor trap.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:43:05 EDT

courty3210 posted : yeah, they should run wires into every house and maintain that infrastructure....instead of a towers servicing hundreds of people at a time.

this is why they aren't running fiber anymore, towers are much cheaper to keep operating with hundreds of techs than thousands of techs servicing house calls.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:40:50 EDT

openbox9 posted : So VZ is damned if they do, damned if they don't?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:38:15 EDT

shortyd999 posted : Why do people consider Birmingham "rural"? I mean its a city of at 200K+ people (i know thats not large but still sizable). Or are they referring to the surrounding area?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:09:16 EDT

CXM_Splicer posted : Yes, true... I forgot about satellite. So they will have some limiting factor in their pricing. I bet that the overhead for satellite (no pun intended) is much higher than for fixed LTE and that Verizon will be able to profit accordingly.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:05:38 EDT

N3OGH posted : Where I live used to be rural. I can see center city Philadelphia from my back deck yet I still have a well & a septic tank.

My well is 700ft deep (no bullshit). So, the water is a little hard, but I just run it through a Zero Water pitcher and it's awesome...
--
Petty people are disproportionally corrupted by petty power

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:57:23 EDT

chances14 posted :

said by 45612019:

Five times? Try 500 times.

If you believe Verizon is paying anything more than an average of 2 cents/gig for Internet traffic then you've been brainwashed.

can you give real, cold hard solid evidence to back that up that it only costs 2 cents a gig to deliver internet traffic or are you just doing what Karl does and guessing and making assumptions

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:51:35 EDT

chances14 posted :

said by fiberguy:

said by 45612019:

No. They're paid for by having numerous subscribers forking out $60 or more a month for service.

Implementing low bandwidth caps with high overage fees is completely unnecessary to recoup deployment costs. That's what the subscriber fee is for. Vastly marked up bandwidth overage fees are just an opportunity to price gouge the consumer.

Have you ever run a company? .. it sure doesn't sound like it. According to you, the activist however, anything that doesn't fit your agenda by any company is going to be foul.

Towers, power, backhaul, employees, workmans comp, insurance (health and liability) taxes of all sorts, advertising, customer service, installation expenses, maintenance, the data itself, government affairs, the cost of spectrum, fuel, vehicle maintenance, the list goes on.. those are expenses.. and as someone that DOES run a business I can tell you that arguments that people like you make just irritate the hell out of me. You think you have it all figured out.. you think it's all about bandwidth. Oh, and they are allowed to make a profit too.

Now please, go on to tell me how all the stuff I mentioned above has nothing to do with the cost of providing the service, for one reason or another.

I don't know where you people get these figures and formulas you come up with to justify your position, but you're FAR FAR FAR off the mark most of the time.

But yea.. it's all about punitive caps and overages so they can gouge the consumer. :uhh:

you gotta remember though that the majority of people on here do not/have not run their own business so they only look at stuff through a consumer point of view so it's understandable why people are uninformed and have no clue about underlying expenses

and remember around here any business that makes a profit is consider evil and greedy

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:42:41 EDT

talos4 posted : Presuming satellite would be available to most as well, it would be another duopoly. If no satellite, then i agree they will be a monopoly for the time being. In theory, the first to market with any new service would be a monopoly. Those areas will have some competition if AT&T or another wireless service provider deploys a similar product.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:11:30 EDT

CXM_Splicer posted : While the system may be designed for rural areas, the fact that it creates a broadband monopoly in those area (which allows artificially high pricing) is indisputable.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:48:07 EDT

iansltx posted : It's harder to market a product with cap-free times, maybe?

If I was running a network with relatively low capacity at peak but low off-peak usage, I'd offer some sort of incentive for off-peak usage. Verizon not doing this (just like WildBlue has never done this) is there prerogative. HughesNet is the only major provider to offer a cap-free period in the US.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:44:36 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by iFail 5G:

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:41:32 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by EvelKub:

Consider how many towers must be installed in rural areas for this to work... The cost for the tower, antennas, cabinets, land, the cost for electricity, fiber runs and maintenance...

Now consider the number of people which will be served by each tower, which won't cover more than a 50 mile area. Each will likely opt for the lower package, as this is considered a luxury to most country-folk.

How long of a time-frame is okay in your mind for them to take to recover their initial investments?

Given much smaller WISPs are able to deploy wireless service to rural users on much smaller economies of scale and must rent bandwidth from Verizon, I think Verizon's costs aren't nearly as high you seem to believe.

If there are so few users, then congestion shouldn't be a problem. And if cost were high, they would simply raise the base price, not duplicitously trick users into paying massive overages when they accidentally go over their cap. Most of those rural folks don't even know what a "GB" is.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:39:18 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by iansltx:

Have you been on an overcrowded (non-D3) cable node? If VZW had unlimited data on LTE, that's what it would feel like. They have 22MHz of spectrum, and you can only pack in ~71 Mbps of capacity on that.

$10 per GB for fixed service is definitely overpriced. However data centers charge 10 cents per GB for overage bandwidth...to say that $10 per GB is overpriced by a factor of 500 is uninformed.

Do you know how they deal with unlimited 3G smartphone users? They throttle speeds when towers are congested.

Okay Ian, let's see these paltry caps are necessary. Then why doesn't Verizon offer unlimited off-peak hours? Say between 12 AM and 8 AM? No one's even awake at the time. Ultra congested satellite offers FAP free during those hours as well.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:37:13 EDT

fiberguy posted : The only thing I can agree with you, so far, is that the way they impose the caps is a bit off the mark to me. They should only need to throttle or over-chage during peak times or on a "smart management" sort of system. Such as once you hit your ceiling and it's peak, then that usage could be charged as a "premium" rate in order to encourage the user to utilize the network during off peak or overnight hours when possible.

Outside of that, you're still way off. ;)

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:34:57 EDT

fiberguy posted :

said by 45612019:

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:32:19 EDT

sonicmerlin posted :

said by iFail 5G:

said by 45612019:

So wait, you actually have the service and get 50 mbit/s?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:29:13 EDT

45612019 posted : Yes. I have been. And it was fine.

I'd rather my connection drop down to half its speed during peak hours than be artificially limited to only using it for a tiny fraction of my billing period.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:28:37 EDT

fiberguy posted :

said by rebus9:

said by iansltx:

And the problem with providing service that's better than the competition in an area that's underserved is...?

You missed the point, which is, they chose areas where they can do the most price gouging with the least amount of push-back. And there will be little push-back because rural areas are desperate. Desperate for anything, even if the price is obscene.

Like I said, in the desert you can charge any price for water.

He didn't miss the point at all... you did.

You're entire premise as to why is completely wrong.. and rather just whining. If this service had been deployed in an affluent area they'd be charged with cherry-picking.

The service is designed for rural areas with little options. I'm sorry their rationality on this doesn't suit your personal agenda. You need to get real. :uhh:

This argument you make reminds me of accountants.. they master the art of taking any thing and making it be what you want.. just like this argument.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:25:46 EDT

fiberguy posted :

said by mythology:

I know some peeps that gotta use their phone for home broadband access. They would love to have this even with the caps. Tho 12mbit will eat up 10gb in no time streaming.

Then don't stream..

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:13:42 EDT

rebus9 posted :

said by iansltx:

And the problem with providing service that's better than the competition in an area that's underserved is...?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:12:12 EDT

iansltx posted : Have you been on an overcrowded (non-D3) cable node? If VZW had unlimited data on LTE, that's what it would feel like. They have 22MHz of spectrum, and you can only pack in ~71 Mbps of capacity on that.

$10 per GB for fixed service is definitely overpriced. However data centers charge 10 cents per GB for overage bandwidth...to say that $10 per GB is overpriced by a factor of 500 is uninformed.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:05:26 EDT

iansltx posted : And the problem with providing service that's better than the competition in an area that's underserved is...?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:02:40 EDT

45612019 posted : No. They're paid for by having numerous subscribers forking out $60 or more a month for service.

Implementing low bandwidth caps with high overage fees is completely unnecessary to recoup deployment costs. That's what the subscriber fee is for. Vastly marked up bandwidth overage fees are just an opportunity to price gouge the consumer.

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:54:43 EDT

EvelKub posted : Consider how many towers must be installed in rural areas for this to work... The cost for the tower, antennas, cabinets, land, the cost for electricity, fiber runs and maintenance...

Now consider the number of people which will be served by each tower, which won't cover more than a 50 mile area. Each will likely opt for the lower package, as this is considered a luxury to most country-folk.

How long of a time-frame is okay in your mind for them to take to recover their initial investments?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:51:16 EDT

dennismurphy posted :

said by 45612019:

Five times? Try 500 times.

If you believe Verizon is paying anything more than an average of 2 cents/gig for Internet traffic then you've been brainwashed.

... Because base stations are free, right?

Re: A 10 GB cap? What a joke.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:41:45 EDT

rebus9 posted :

said by iFail 5G:

With satellite I was never even able to hit 6 gig's in a month because its been so poor. So I can gladly watch my usage for 10GB and usable service lol.

So it's no mystery why VZ is deploying this in rural areas first.

Where else in the country can they charge high dollars for low caps, and get no push-back from users? Answer-- in areas where people are desperate for ANYTHING useable.

In the desert, you can charge any price for water.....