Samwoo
join:2002-02-15
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
1 edit | reply to DarkSly
Re: ?
When networks upgraded their speeds but kept their monthly caps the same; many people here didn't seem to understand the point. (they argued that higher speeds only let them hit their cap faster and did nothing to increase how much they could download) Either they where too much of a power downloader to see the point or they just wanted to complain some more.
I bet that the most average internet users have habits of downloading bursts of data. And making burst transfers faster is a good thing even if it doesn't help the power downloader (OMG you aren't important to comcast?!)
Preferably, I don't care about download speed; i can wait a little; but I want good latency because i play some first person shooter on-line multiplayer games (game clients in general are low bandwidth but low latency applications) but are they going to make a super low latency service because on-line gamers care? NO! not unless the average user plays enough on-line games to notice latency problems. (So I like the success of things like halo and xbox even when I use a pc, because that just makes my preferences that much more important to the isp.)
Just like bandwidth increases (with the same cap). This helps the average customer, and it will also likely keep operating costs down.
This is also a concession to the fact that trying to offer cheap guaranteed high-speed upstream bandwidth is impossible. People always complain when they can not get their advertised speed, but a guaranteed speed is merely a fantasy. Now they can have a guaranteed speed (no upgrades this year because they just can't make it any higher without destroying the network) but also utilize extra bandwidth (lets say when much of their users aren't using their connection. gasp what a concept  ) to make people happy.
Capitalism once said that companies would compete with each other and improve produce quality to increase their competitiveness. Whoever believed that forgot two things. Companies only need to please their majority market to become competitive, and the majority market can easily be pleased by poor quality but super cheap. (and compared to high quality business and ISDN connections, the residential service of broadband is cheap) |
