A few weeks ago, customers of Washington, Oregon and California cable operator Wave Broadband (see our user reviews) let us know that the company had quietly begun implementing a cap system. Shortly after the terms of service were changed, customers began to notice that their connections were starting to get throttled to 1.5Mbps or slower should they consume more than 3GB per day (combined upload/download). Some users say their 10Mbps connections were suddenly as slow as 300kbps once they'd exceeded the limit.

WaveBroadband user drew writes in to note that while the Wave website makes ample mention of the caps, the company is sending mixed messages in terms of informing customers about specific network limitations. The company's various service plans are listed here, though so far they only outline the 18Mbps/2Mbps service ($74.95 or $64.95 if bundled with TV) as having a 300GB cap. Caps on slower tiers exist, but aren't being advertised (yet).

Despite no reference on the website, customers are being told that the company's 10Mbps tier now comes with a 100GB per month cap, and their 6MBps tier now comes with a 50GB per month cap. The fine print of the product page does acknowledge that "each tier of High Speed Internet Service includes an allotment of bandwidth consumption that you may use during each calendar month at no additional charge," going on to note that "additional bandwidth consumed beyond that allotment will be billed at $5/per 10 GB consumed."

Wave hasn't responded to our request for comment, but judging from employee forum posts, it looks like they implemented a 3GB daily cap to handle network strain after growing faster than they expected. They've since decided to move to a cap and overage system, but like NY-based DSL provider Frontier (and their 5GB cap snafu), didn't quite have all their ducks in a row before making references to the caps on their website. The result is a sloppy mess where consumers aren't clearly informed of the limitations of the product they're paying for.

While the need for caps and overages is a contentious issue, must people agree that the least ISPs can do is be very clear about what they're doing. Customers say they'd vote with their wallet -- if they had other options. "I've got exactly one other option to Wave: Qwest DSL," says drew . "I'm pretty much in the heart of the population center of Port Orchard (Washington State) and cannot get provisioned for anything more than 1.5Mbps from them."

Interestingly, users note that changing the MAC address on their router will reset the daily cap that's still currently being used in some markets. It looks like the daily caps in place in some markets will be eliminated when Wave begins officially capping users and charging overages, which some customers are being told will begin more officially in April.