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Needleinthha
join:2009-11-30
Chandler, AZ

Needleinthha to Rakeesh

Member

to Rakeesh

Re: [ALL] Disconnected for overusage

Look at it this way: how much does it cost them if you go over your caps? A few cents? a dollar at the most? Do they really want to lose out on ~$800/year because you cost them an extra $2? I doubt it.
nmlobo
join:2002-11-02
Yorktown, VA

nmlobo

Member

Look at it this way: when one user monopolizes the available bandwidth, the other users on the node suffer. Do they really want to keep one customer happy at the expense of losing several others?
screenname
join:2004-08-12
Irvine, CA

screenname

Member

said by nmlobo:

Look at it this way: when one user monopolizes the available bandwidth, the other users on the node suffer. Do they really want to keep one customer happy at the expense of losing several others?

I guess there is where "problem child" list comes in. If I go over my cap by 50% or 100%, will any customer on my node notice?
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman to nmlobo

Premium Member

to nmlobo
Cox has the ability to deal with any temporary congestion that a node is dealing with. They can reduce or throttle down the flow of data. Any subscribers who have been transferring lots of data just prior to the throttle will see a significant reduction in their data transfer rate. That reduction will last until the traffic jam at the node is cleared. It is possible to have congestion, even if everyone is using the node on an equal basis.

Imagine for example, a node with 1000 subscribers, all of whom are on the Preferred tier of 25 Mbps download. If all of those subscribers attempt to download the same 8 identical HD movies, from the same source, at the exact same time, there might be a congestion problem. No one subscriber is the cause of the congestion, so there would be some throttling for all subscribers until the congestion cleared. Monthly caps, as they presently exist, are not going to solve that situation, only more throughput capacity for that node.

If the users in the previous example were somehow divided into 10 equal groups and each group downloaded the same content in a certain 1 hour time frame, perhaps from 10:00 pm to 8:00 am, then there probably would be no node congestion and thus no need to throttle. Same total amount of data transferred. Again, monthly caps do not come into play.

Another consideration, what happens if all of the subscribers sign up for the highest speed tier all at the same time? Now you have 1,000 subscribers for the Ultimate tier of 150 Mbps and 400GB cap. Those previous abusers of bandwidth who only had 250GB and used 300GB, are now allowed 400GB. The equipment on the node has not changed. So now no more overage e-mails if they use 350 GB. Again monthly caps, as presently used by Cox, have no bearing on any subscriber's experience with the internet connection.

I have said before that almost all of the subscribers of Cox internet service are not demanding 100% full use of a connection as advertised, resulting in many multiple TBs of data usage, but having caps that represent only 1% of that full use is seen as too little. A nice compromise would be 10% of continuous usage, with separate meters for download and upload usage, since those data transfer rates are different. So, a 150/20 Ultimate tier would be allowed about 5 TB of download and 660 GB of upload. A 5/1 Essential tier would be allowed about 165 GB of download and 33 GB of upload. That would be much more in line with how an internet connection to the World Wide Web is going to be used.
Azlen
join:2010-05-03
Peoria, AZ

Azlen to Needleinthha

Member

to Needleinthha
said by Needleinthha:

Look at it this way: how much does it cost them if you go over your caps? A few cents? a dollar at the most? Do they really want to lose out on ~$800/year because you cost them an extra $2? I doubt it.

That's not really the way costs work with ISP's. Cost isn't related to how much you download, it's not like water or electricity. I compare more to a pipe that the water flows through. Their cost is more related to peak usage, essentially how wide do they need to make the pipe. Someone using their connection at full blast in the middle of the night doesn't cost the ISP much if anything because the pipe is relatively empty at those times. Caps are used the way they are primarily because they're a simple way to cut down on overall demand even if their costs are primarily based on peak demand.

jchambers28
Premium Member
join:2007-05-12
Peculiar, MO

jchambers28 to Squirrely

Premium Member

to Squirrely
I do all my heavy downloading of a night 2 to 4 AM. Load at those times are low. I have been watching a bunch of video on the new X99 platform launch from Intel I download 120 GB most of it was in 4K 50GB per hour in 4K.

OpTiC
Premium Member
join:2014-03-08
West Covina, CA

OpTiC to Squirrely

Premium Member

to Squirrely
For the caps hey Cox you know Charter is getting rid of the caps. Start following Charters route.
davidhoffman
Premium Member
join:2009-11-19
Warner Robins, GA

davidhoffman

Premium Member

I doubt Cox will get rid of caps. Increase them, yes. Get rid of them, no.
Caps are a last resort tool, to be used against subscribers who are labeled as perpetual problem people.
Andrew6
join:2014-07-25
Hampton, VA

Andrew6

Member

Most of you are missing the reason for the cap... and yes, I've gone over it a few times myself.

Cox, like any other Cable/HSI company, is putting these caps in place to try to limit... wait for it... streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc. They don't like the fact that many of us have DROPPED cable TV altogether and are using our internet connections often in place of their cable TV service.

Think about it. How much bandwidth do you use watching 1080p movies and TV shows online? 250GB a month equates to roughly 1 movie or 2-2.5 TV shows a night. Compare that to a 3 hour MLB.TV baseball game each night and you're probably going over that limit each month.

While Cox isn't currently disconnecting people, the caps are in place in case they financially NEED to disconnect people. If the economy tanks again, see if that doesn't start happening.

Hopefully Google will come to the rescue and give (eventually) all Cable/hsi providers a little competition before that happens.