The Future Of American Cable BroadbandLow monthly caps and overage charges? 01:26PM Thursday Apr 10 2008 by Karl Bodetags: business · bandwidth · cable · capsWe just got done saying that one possible future of U.S. cable broadband can be seen on display in Canada. Canadian cable operator Rogers not only offers different tiers for usage (as U.S. providers do), but they recently started charging users between $1.25-$5 per gigabyte for going over their 60GB monthly caps. Canadian Grandma, on her "eXtreme!" ultra-lite 2Mbps downstream tier, enjoys paying $5.00 per additional GB. Gizmodo notes that at least one American broadband provider already does this. Bend, Oregon based BendBroadband (just one review in our database) offers some nice speeds (8-16Mbps down, 1-1.5Mbps up) but some not so nice caps (10-50GB monthly), and charges $1.50 per additional gigabyte consumed. It looks like modem rental will cost you an additional $10, and at least one tier has to pay $2.95 extra for anti-virus protection delivered for free on higher tiers. ISP execs from nearly a dozen providers have told us they know it will be hard to sell U.S. consumers on straight per-byte-billing, but it's very possible they could have better luck with low caps and overage charges, particularly if they continue to be successful convincing the public that there's a looming bandwidth apocalypse. We were the first to break the news that Time Warner Cable was already considering imposing monthly caps between 5 and 40GB, likely with overages.
Related:- Don't Get Too Excited About The FCC's Comcast 'Investigation'
- Time Warner Cable Eyeing Overage Charges?
- Videotron Unveils 30Mbps, 50Mbps Tiers
- NY Attorney General Investigating Comcast
- Rogers Starts Billing For Overages in July
- Time Warner Cable: Caps 'Make Your Internet Experience Better'
- Comcast Flips, Flops Way Around Throttling Lawsuit
- Comcast Expands New Throttling Tests
|
 
bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Longmont, CO
clubs: | Good. Maybe when mommy and daddy actually have to pay for juniors file stealing, it'll slow down. | |
|  | BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Everett, MA
clubs:
 ·Comcast Formerly ..
| Re: Good. said by bent  :Maybe when mommy and daddy actually have to pay for juniors file stealing, it'll slow down. That is the dumbest quote EVER. Are you just trying to troll ?
That is a blanket statement that doesn't cover a majority of the industry.
Video on demand sites like netflix , will be killed by this move , Directv on demand will be killed , streaming music will be killed. Helping the linux community will be killed youtube , myspace , flickr , sectionz , hitz , even AOL.
Do you think before you speak ? It's not all theft like you and your ilk like to forecast.
--
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" | |
| | |
bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Longmont, CO
clubs:
·Comcast Formerly ..
| Re: Good. Stating an unpopular opinion isn't trolling, it's opening up discussion.
The vast majority of internet users aren't anywhere near 50 or 60 gigs a month, much less the 100 gigs in a month that might get you in dutch with your ISP currently. Maybe those that are in those upper reaches of data consumption should pay a premium?
--
»www.lp.org/issues/family-budget.shtml
"That government is best which governs least" - Thoreau | |
| | | | 
Frank
is chilling
Premium
join:2000-11-03
somewhere
| Re: Good. said by bent :Stating an unpopular opinion isn't trolling, it's opening up discussion. The vast majority of internet users aren't anywhere near 50 or 60 gigs a month, much less the 100 gigs in a month that might get you in dutch with your ISP currently. Maybe those that are in those upper reaches of data consumption should pay a premium? in 1996 the vast majority of internet users paid for internet access by the hour and used dialup connections. Any overusage meant you had to pay really expensive fees. The entire reason this stopped was because of competition, most companies which did not adopt the 'unlimited usage' model went out of business. To me this is a step backwards and I forsee many more isps stupid enough to implement this going out of business.
This may work in canada because bell canada practically has in my opinion what I would consider a monopoly but i'm pretty sure that there are marketing teams for various isps in the US that are just salivating at the type of commercials they can run against the first major isp in the u.s. to be stupid enough to try this.
--
At first I thought everyone on the highway was drunk but then I realized I was driving in Florida  | |
| | | | | 
RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| Re: Good. said by Frank :said by bent :Stating an unpopular opinion isn't trolling, it's opening up discussion. The vast majority of internet users aren't anywhere near 50 or 60 gigs a month, much less the 100 gigs in a month that might get you in dutch with your ISP currently. Maybe those that are in those upper reaches of data consumption should pay a premium? in 1996 the vast majority of internet users paid for internet access by the hour and used dialup connections. Any overusage meant you had to pay really expensive fees. The entire reason this stopped was because of competition, most companies which did not adopt the 'unlimited usage' model went out of business. To me this is a step backwards and I forsee many more isps stupid enough to implement this going out of business. This may work in canada because bell canada practically has in my opinion what I would consider a monopoly but i'm pretty sure that there are marketing teams for various isps in the US that are just salivating at the type of commercials they can run against the first major isp in the u.s. to be stupid enough to try this. There is one major difference between the 1996 situation and today. IN 1996, you could move to a new dial-up ISP. Today, you can NOT move to a new Cable ISP since you are in a Take-It-or-Leave-It situation due to there being only one Cable Company per area. If you are lucky enough to have a AT&T U-whatever-it-is-called or Verizon FIOS option you can switch to them (assuming that they do not try this stunt also) or downgrade to whatever speed of DSL your local Telco offers but that is your only other options except to just drop Internet Access or pay the blackmail fees to your Cable Company. | |
| | | | | |
Frank
is chilling
Premium
join:2000-11-03
somewhere
| Re: Good. said by RARPSL :said by Frank :said by bent :Stating an unpopular opinion isn't trolling, it's opening up discussion. The vast majority of internet users aren't anywhere near 50 or 60 gigs a month, much less the 100 gigs in a month that might get you in dutch with your ISP currently. Maybe those that are in those upper reaches of data consumption should pay a premium? in 1996 the vast majority of internet users paid for internet access by the hour and used dialup connections. Any overusage meant you had to pay really expensive fees. The entire reason this stopped was because of competition, most companies which did not adopt the 'unlimited usage' model went out of business. To me this is a step backwards and I forsee many more isps stupid enough to implement this going out of business. This may work in canada because bell canada practically has in my opinion what I would consider a monopoly but i'm pretty sure that there are marketing teams for various isps in the US that are just salivating at the type of commercials they can run against the first major isp in the u.s. to be stupid enough to try this. There is one major difference between the 1996 situation and today. IN 1996, you could move to a new dial-up ISP. Today, you can NOT move to a new Cable ISP since you are in a Take-It-or-Leave-It situation due to there being only one Cable Company per area. If you are lucky enough to have a AT&T U-whatever-it-is-called or Verizon FIOS option you can switch to them (assuming that they do not try this stunt also) or downgrade to whatever speed of DSL your local Telco offers but that is your only other options except to just drop Internet Access or pay the blackmail fees to your Cable Company. you do not have to go with what your telco offers unless you live ridiculously far from your central office. There are other companies available out there for dsl that offer different types of dsl circuits. I know this for a fact because I used to have an sdsl line for cheap prior to getting cable. Would I drop my cable company if they started to do this? In a heartbeat. Would others also? of course. All it takes is a few people hearing horror stories of $1000 internet overage charge bills and a savy competitor to get people to switch in waves.
--
At first I thought everyone on the highway was drunk but then I realized I was driving in Florida | |
| | | | | | | NOCMan
Verizon Fios User
Premium
join:2004-09-30
Flower Mound, TX | Re: Good. That ends if AT&T install uverse or you have FIOS. | |
| | | | | | | |
Frank
is chilling
Premium
join:2000-11-03
somewhere
| Re: Good.
really? |
said by NOCMan :That ends if AT&T install uverse or you have FIOS. really? It's interesting that you say that considering that the apartment building i'm moving to is already wired for fios and I can get dsl even though i've seen the fios ONT in the apartment with my own eyes....
--
At first I thought everyone on the highway was drunk but then I realized I was driving in Florida | |
| | | | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY | Not with Uverse. With Uverse, when you order it, they just plug in a VDSL modem into your line at the neighborhood cross connect box. Your voice service is still comes from either a legacy RT/Pair Gain/DLC or the central office. | |
| | | | | | 
MisterMarcus
join:2001-11-10
San Diego, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| Precisely the point. Dialup companies could rape the customer at will because there was true competition. A dialup provider simply needed to provide access numbers to essentially allow your computer the ability to call another computer, creating the "network connection". Dialup ISPs had no hardware installed at the premise, so to speak. All a user had to have was a phone line...which at the time was a monopoly owned by the Bells (and don't get me started on how they raped customers on charges...local toll, pshh)
Now, cable companies hold the monopoly on certain areas of cities. Where I am, I can't choose to go with Cox or Time Warner; it depends on where I live at the time. Rancho Bernardo (most of it) is wired for Time Warner. Escondido (most of it) is wired for Cox. In other words, it depends on where I live, when. Last I heard, Cox was going to absorb the remaining Time Warner areas; I certainly hope not, as I was rather pleased with Time Warner's internet offering.
Basically, if cable cos choose to go with this model, there's nothing you can do except defect to DSL - which is inferior in some areas, especially mine. Not only lower speeds, but the ambiguity of the "loop length to the CO" nonsense, it's a crap shoot whether you'll get service and if you do, whether it'll be decent or not.
No...for consumers like me, if they implement it, we'll have to pay it. There's no other choice. | |
| | | | 
maartena
Super Grover
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
edit:
April 10th, @05:54PM
| said by bent :Stating an unpopular opinion isn't trolling, it's opening up discussion. The vast majority of internet users aren't anywhere near 50 or 60 gigs a month, much less the 100 gigs in a month that might get you in dutch with your ISP currently. Maybe those that are in those upper reaches of data consumption should pay a premium? The idea itself, "pay for what you use" is not a bad idea. But then I don't want to pay $50 for my broadband connection either, I want to pay a $10 flat fee, just as you would pay a flat baseline fee to your electricity provider that is about the same amount, and then pay for usage on top of that.
I don't mind paying $10 for broadband, maybe have 2 Gb of free data included to prevent complaints about spam and un-authorized traffic you didn't ask for, and then pay $1 per Gb. If I download 15 Gb, my bill will be $25, and if I go crazy one month, it may be $100.
I don't mind that. But don't go adding charges to my already expensive broadband. If you offer "unlimited", don't complain if I have a 1 Mbps video stream running most of the day because the cable company don't offer that particular channel on the TV lineup. :P
Having said that, the amount of traffic is ever-increasing. It's not the torrents or p2p that ISP's now are complaining about, it is the bandwidth from online video sites. In Great Brittain the BBC launched its online TV service last year (only for Brittons on a Brittish IP address due to broadcast rights) and it is so hugely succesfull it has ISP's complaining about users actually using it.
Here in the US, more and more channels are putting their TV shows online after they have aired (with built in commercials) and quite frankly, if I forgot to record a show and they have it available, I use those kind of services.
VOIP is becoming increasingly more popular, especially for long distance calls. There are actually people that I know of that have a Vonage line just to chat with their parents on the other side of the country.
iTunes is increasingly popular, just like other legal MP3 websites. Youtube is bookmarked on pretty much every teen's computer and used extensively. My 14 year old niece has answered "I am youtubing" on my question what she was doing on the internet.
If you have a family of four, mom, dad and two teenage kids, chances are you will actually hit 50 Gb of traffic a month just using the internet. My Windows Update just downloaded about 500 megs of updates because of Vista SP1. Two months back it was 300 megs because of Office 2007 SP1. Imagine having 4 or 5 PC's in your house running different versions of Windows and Office or MacOS, all needing updates..... just updating your PC's, including the virus definitions 3 times a week or so, can add up to 2 Gb a month alone.
And it's going to get more and more. Steam sells you games online with 4 Gb downloads. World of Warcraft gives you 800 meg updates and sells the 2 Gb expansion online. Netflix just launched its download service, for a fixed price a month you can download movies that you can burn to DVD yourself, which I can only imagine are at least 1 Gb or so downloads (compressed) per movie, if not more.
If you are a techie like me, you sometimes like to try new Linux distros. 600 megs for the basic CD's, but 4 Gb for the DVD version. I have downloaded as much as 4 different distros on DVD in 1 week.
We are not living in the age of "e-mail and browse the web" anymore. You could get by with 10 Gb.... about 10 years ago. Now, it is not uncommon to have to add a 0 to it if you have an active, online family.
ISP's need to increase their bandwidth, because people are continuing to be hungry for it. Punishing them will only hold technology back.
Who's gonna pay for it? Well, I know for a FACT that bandwidth on the high-end scale is getting cheaper. DS3's are selling for $3k now, about 5 years ago you would have to shell out at least $7k for a DS3.
--
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father. | |
| | | | | NOCMan
Verizon Fios User
Premium
join:2004-09-30
Flower Mound, TX
| Re: Good. So you're willing to pay a 800% markup on the actual cost of bandwidth delivery? They're paying 2-5 cents per gigabyte of traffic and in some cases with peering agreements even less than that.
Like others have stated, it would kill any internet based competition and destroy many good paying jobs. People will quit using the internet and many good projects will be destroyed.
Billing by the byte is not the answer. It's greed plain and simple. | |
| | | | | | devnuller
join:2006-06-10
Hollis, NH
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Charter Pipeline
| Re: Good. said by NOCMan :So you're willing to pay a 800% markup on the actual cost of bandwidth delivery? They're paying 2-5 cents per gigabyte of traffic and in some cases with peering agreements even less than that. NOCMan, (what an inappropriate name)
You have NO IDEA what you are talking about! Your statements are baseless and uneducated.
Please quote your economic data which shows not only your example around the small cost of a 6 meter fiber interconnect with another carrier (transit/peering), but also the 100's of thousands of miles of fiber, 10's of thousands of routers, transport equipment, CMTSs, frequency allocation, etc, etc, that is needed to upgrade capacity in a massive scale.
Networks are not financially based on per gigabyte used. They are built for peak usage. Please stop quoting the same uneducated errors over and over again. | |
| | | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| Re: Good. Verizon IS PAID when they "get bandwidth", they own UUNET. So they have free bandwidth to the world. They are the highest peered network in the world, and all of it will be free peering or profit peer (someone pays them to get a connection to them, they dont need to pay anyone else). Also having 26 million IPs (on that ASN alone) makes them the 4th largest network of potential customers online (I'm disregarding Bourgeoisie corporations that got /8 blocks pre-IANA and non USA providers). Note ASN numbers are loose indicators of size, a company may 1000s-1,000,000s of unused IPs inside that ASN that dont ever see any use, and a company may have multiple ASNs which I am not looking at.
»fixedorbit.com/stats.htm | |
| | | | |
bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Longmont, CO
clubs: | Re: Good. I suppose you'd also like a bottomless tank of gas for your SUV for one flat price every month? | |
| | | | 
Luker3
join:2004-10-09
Blacksburg, VA | Re: Good. YES! I do want a flat rate for gas! Then I could drive all day non-stop. | |
| | | | fuziwuzi
Not born yesterday
join:2005-07-01
Atlanta, GA | You waste a lot of bandwidth delivering non sequiturs and baseless trolling. You must be one of those neo-Luddite's who think the internet should only be for your personal email and browsing static web pages. Sorry, but it isn't 1994 anymore. | |
| | | |
Frank
is chilling
Premium
join:2000-11-03
somewhere
| said by bent :I suppose you'd also like a bottomless tank of gas for your SUV for one flat price every month? gasoline is an exhaustible resource just like electricity. internet and media is not. you dont see the cable company billing you based upon how many hours your cablebox was turned on do you?
--
At first I thought everyone on the highway was drunk but then I realized I was driving in Florida | |
| | | | | plat2on1
join:2002-08-21
Hopewell Junction, NY
clubs:
| Re: Good. said by Frank :said by bent :I suppose you'd also like a bottomless tank of gas for your SUV for one flat price every month? gasoline is an exhaustible resource just like electricity. internet and media is not. you dont see the cable company billing you based upon how many hours your cablebox was turned on do you? does internet run on magical fairy dust? | |
| | | | | | gefflong
join:2003-02-18
Aledo, IL
| Re: Good. said by plat2on1 :said by Frank :said by bent :I suppose you'd also like a bottomless tank of gas for your SUV for one flat price every month? gasoline is an exhaustible resource just like electricity. internet and media is not. you dont see the cable company billing you based upon how many hours your cablebox was turned on do you? does internet run on magical fairy dust? These might be the two stupidest quotes I've seen in a while. Gasoline usage and Internet usage are not even comparable. And "magical fairy dust"... you should probably buy a vowel and then see if you can solve the puzzle.
A similar move would be to have cable companies charge by hour watched as Frank suggested. If you want to watch ER and Friday Night Lights, then it's going to cost you more. If you don't like it, then you'll have to choose one.
Seems pretty stupid, doesn't it!?!
Unless companies and get away with it. Then they'll do it. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | 
Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
Albany, NY
| If Exxon advertised an plan that offered unlimited gas for a low monthly rate and I paid the rate, I would expect unlimited gas. I wouldn't expect Exxon to suddenly charge me more because I had used too many gallons in a particular month. (Especially if "too many gallons" wasn't defined anywhere and if I wasn't given any way of telling how close I was to "too many gallons.") | |
| | 
EchoD
Moon Dust High
Premium
join:2004-01-06
Jamestown, NY
 ·lunarpages
| Certainly. But what of legitimate large file transfers? Purchased music and video, purchased software downloads, open source software, and streaming media?
This seems more about milking the customer than slowing piracy.
--
Everyone wants to go to the Moon. The idiots want to eat the cheese, but the rest of us just want to snort the Moon Dust. | |
| | | | | Kearnstd
Elf Wizard
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ
| Re: Good. said by KrK :Get "Bent"... Troll much? We need the future internet to be fast and have massive uncapped bandwidth so that next generation services and goods can be delivered and our economy prosper. People like you would take us back to the stone ages for their own personal gain.... id love a media rich internet too, but even if the US ISPs provide a cheap open pipe the best features will be lawyered away by the MPAA. Networked DVRs for example could have huge potential in a properly wired world, it would be cool to set a recording at home and then decide to watch it at a hotel on a trip by logging into comcast.net(as an example) and be able to watch a show because its saved on their system rather then the cable box.
--
[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
| | | | | fuziwuzi
Not born yesterday
join:2005-07-01
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| Re: Good. said by bent :blah blah blah blahSorry, your crys are falling on deaf ears. I imagine that to simply mask your lack of understanding of much of the modern world, you have "deaf ears" to everything around you. The world has moved on, it isn't 1996 anymore. Ever heard of things like Amazon Unbox? Vuze? Rhapsody? iTunes? These things take bandwidth and are legal and licensed. There is only going to be more like them. If you can't handle progress, maybe Ted Kaczynski will rent you his cabin. | |
| | | |
bent
not broken
Premium
join:2004-10-04
Longmont, CO
clubs:
·Comcast Formerly ..
| Re: Good. So what you want is 2008 bandwidth consumption on a 1998-era network, you want all you can use, AND you want to pay $45/mo for it, and then you scream bloody murder if somebody injects a RST into some of your 256 concurrent TCP connections?
Even using bandwidth intensive music and video services won't put most households above the 100 gig mark every month. Know what does that? P2P file stealing.
Have your cake and eat it much?
--
»www.lp.org/issues/family-budget.shtml
"That government is best which governs least" - Thoreau | |
| 
asdfdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net
| Reasonably structured per byte billing is better than... low caps and overages.
I understand that people don't really like the idea of per-byte billing because they like a predictable monthly charge.
Low caps with overages soak low consumption users, remove the certainty of flat rate and deprive people of most of their ability to control costs by controlling consumption. It's a bad deal for customers all around. Per-byte removes certainty but it allows people more control over their costs and it doesn't gouge low use.
I'm still not convinced that present flat rate is destroying profitability or that such a model is unsustainable. I think this dire talk is a short term problem being exploited to try to rationalize application discrimination and QOS to undermine services competition. | |
| 
AZ_OGM
join:2007-01-12
Phoenix, AZ | If they can bill by the byte... Why not also institute rollover bytes similar to what AT&T does with wireless minutes. That way you can always stockpile them so you can be ready for the next service pack Microsoft rolls out. | |
| | elwoodblues
join:2006-08-30
Toronto, ON | Re: If they can bill by the byte... They don't roll-over minutes here either | |
| | | Corydon
Cultivant son jardin
Premium
join:2008-02-18
Denver, CO
clubs:
·Comcast
| What we really need... ...is reliable QoS, ideally for the Internet as a whole.
That way, critical real-time applications like VoIP can get the top priority (thus enhancing the utility of VoIP providers other than ISPs), applications where real-time is preferable, but not critical, like online gaming and web browsing can go to the next tier, and applications that generally run in the background and/or on an unattended computer, like P2P and FTP can get the lowest priority.
Of course, this relies on P2P applications (and everyone else) playing fair and not trying to bump up the priority of their transfers. It also relies on their being sufficient capacity to allow P2P to work reasonably well most of the time.
Given the rather questionable ethics and morality in some parts of the P2P community, I'm not sure they could be relied on to allow this to work. But perhaps something like this will be the basis for the rapprochement between BitTorrent and Comcast.
On the other hand, this sounds an awful lot like what Comcast was originally trying to do (at least according to them). The idea may not be salvageable, even with BT's cooperation, especially given Comcast's penchant for secrecy and duplicity and their shoot-yourself-in-the-foot style of PR.
And I'm sure some of the net neutrality folks would have objections to the whole idea of privileging certain types of data over others even if it were done in an open, above-board and nondiscriminatory (to different providers or types of content) way.
--
My opinions are my own. No-one else would want them! | |
| |
RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| Re: What we really need... said by Corydon :...is reliable QoS, ideally for the Internet as a whole. End-to-end QoS (where the two end points are NOT on the same network) is not possible UNTIL IPv6 is rolled out and the session is being serviced via IPv6 not the current IPv4. Any QoS for a IPv4 session can only be done so long as the session stays on your ISP's network. Only IPv6 has the capability to handle end-to-end QoS. | |
| | Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| Unfortunately that would violate one of the tenants of the internet (traffic is traffic).
There is a far easier solution to the problem: ISPs just need to be less greedy. Just bring their networks up to international standards and there is no problem. They have posted huge profits over the years. Now it is time for them to reinvest some of that money back into the system. Verizon (or whoever it is that is doing the FTTH project) seems to understand this but most of the rest just do not seem to get it. There is a reason that we are falling behind in technology (probably greed). There are a lot of other countries that have much faster symmetrical internet for less money(Japan, Korea, France). For 5meg service I am now paying $60 per month. St. Louis is not exactly out in the boonies either. Yet I have friends all around the world that are paying sub $45 for 50/50meg service. They are not seeing any caps or throttling. The only places that I regullary hear of higher prices are from friends living in "developing countries"(or whatever the current politically corect term is).
Some people try to bring up population density (of the entire country) as a factor but that does not really apply. Very few ISP run out into rural areas. So we should really be comparing metros to metros. In which case there is not much of a difference. Other people will point out that some of these countries subsidized their infrastructure but they forget that the US did the exact same thing. | |
| | | 
kadar
Who is Ron Paul?
Premium,ExMod 2001-02
join:0000-00-00
lost
| Re: What we really need... said by Lazlow : There are a lot of other countries that have much faster symmetrical internet for less money(Japan, Korea, France). For 5meg service I am now paying $60 per month. St. Louis is not exactly out in the boonies either. Yet I have friends all around the world that are paying sub $45 for 50/50meg service. They are not seeing any caps or throttling. The only places that I regullary hear of higher prices are from friends living in "developing countries"(or whatever the current politically corect term is). Some people try to bring up population density (of the entire country) as a factor but that does not really apply. Very few ISP run out into rural areas. So we should really be comparing metros to metros. In which case there is not much of a difference. Other people will point out that some of these countries subsidized their infrastructure but they forget that the US did the exact same thing. Here's Romania's main fiber ISP.
These packages contain HSI, TV (86 basic channels) and phone service.
Prices are approximately $10, $15 and $20 USD a month.
»www.rdslink.ro/fiber/fiber_abonamente.htm
Pentru abonatii de cablu tv RCS & RDS
25 LEI (cu TVA inclus) 35 LEI (cu TVA inclus) 45 LEI (cu TVA inclus)
Internet
bil Latime de banda maxima in orasul tau 30 Mb/s 50 Mb/s 50 Mb/s
bil Latime de banda maxima in internet 2Mb/s 3 Mb/s 4 Mb/s
bil Trafic cu latime de banda maxima in internet** nelimitat nelimitat nelimitat
Telefonie
bil Minute incluse in reteaua RDS.Tel 500 1000 1000
bil Minute incluse in reteaua Romtelecom 50 100 200
*******
A buddy over there has a $30 package same as above, different company, but 100/100M in country, 30/30M internet.
--
The Revolutionary War was fought over a 14% tax, what % are you paying now? | |
| 
MemphisPCGuy
Senior Systems Engineer
Premium
join:2004-05-09
Memphis, TN
·Comcast
| I will switch to the company that implements this last I will certainly switch to the company that implements unreasonably low caps and overages last. I am currently paying Comcast $172.00 month for digital phone, 8Mb Tubes and HDTV. If they aren't making enough money out of that I will just need to peice meal my digital lifestyle and the lowest bidder gets the money.
--
»www.memphispcguy.com | |
|
Vudew
| hrm.. Well as I am unsure of how this would effect me since my wife works for the cable company.. so we get free internet.. I would hate for this to get implemented.. and would guess it would kill the youtube type websites.. or at least majorly lower their visitors. guess only time will tell... still a stupid idea IMHO.. all about bleeding us out of our hard earned money. | |
| Jean_22
join:2005-08-27
Quebec, QC | And Videotron? Can I know why they sa "Rogers implemented that" while Videotron has had completely stupid/ridiculous caps at $8/GB for YEARS?? | |
| TheMG
join:2007-09-04
Edmonton, AB
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·800Hosting.com
·Dreamhost
·TELUS
·Shaw
| It's not the concept that fails... it's the price. There's nothing wrong with overage charges and caps. What IS wrong however is firstly the RIDICULOUS price the ISPs ask per-gigabyte. Anything over $0.50/GB I consider ridiculous, for the pure and simple fact that no, it doesn't cost ISPs that much, and no, ISPs DO NOT get billed by the byte, they pay for a certain pipe size (100mbps, 1gbps, etc...). Take for example TekSavvy, who charges a very reasonable $0.25/GB overage. Despite that, word is they still make money off of it. What if there's lots of people downloading (and paying) over their caps and the pipes get clogged? Well, the ISP should take the money from the overages, and buy more capacity.
Also, ISPs that engage in per-byte billing imo SHOULD NOT participate in throttling/blocking of any protocols/ports (save for SMTP, and there are good reasons for that). You should be able to get what you pay for, it should not matter that you downloaded a GB of p2p or a GB of http... a GB is a GB and should be treated equally. Now wait a minute, isn't that the whole idea behind net neutrality? Yep.
Ok, so to recap, billing by the byte is fine if the price is right, ISPs should ONLY throttle on all-you-can-eat plans, but not on by-the-byte, and ISPs should use money from overage charges to buy more capacity if needed, instead of using overage charges as a way to discourage subscribers from exceeding their caps. | |
| | 
KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Re: It's not the concept that fails... it's the price. I'd say 5 cents is about right per GB. | |
| lvlorpheus
join:2008-02-17
Eureka Springs, AR
| My thoughts on this This is all about Comcrap and all of the other cable companies looking down the road to the future. It has to do with the 30% market cap that is on cable companies. Just forget about any internet traffic that is looked at as illegal. It is just the nature of the internet, and all of the useful things that are legal that can be done on it, that has cable looking to models like this. It is only a matter of time before all of the major cable companies reach that 30% market cap. No one here is so close minded as to think legal internet traffic of the future will become less demanding on bandwidth. So in the future how long are cable companies suppose to keep improving their network and buying more and more bandwidth with no foreseeable profit increase. I think the answer might be to limit all ISP's to 20 to 30 percent of the urban market and say but rural deployment does not count against your percent of the market reached, but you cannot cap bandwidth. I know a lot of people here like to believe that there is no profit in rural markets but I find it hard to believe that after 50 to 100 years of rural phone service there has been no profit made. So either something can be done to encourage, build outs that allow the rural 40% of the nation to add to the profits or those of you in urban marks can look forward caps and overages. They will find a way to make more money or they will at some point in the future have no choice but to close their doors. If that happens, prices will go up a lot. The mindset that if a profit cannot be shown in a quarter or 2 has to change in this country. There is nothing wrong with profit even if it is made in a quarter or two, but it needs to not be the deciding factor of what gets improved in this country. | |
| robertfl
Premium
join:2005-10-10
Mary Esther, FL | Greed I think this says it all..
If they go pay per bite, there will be no more interent in this house.. period.
Were being mind fucked because the assholes at the corporate top want CONTROL at what we view, see say and do.
-Rob | |
| | 
Dryvlyne
Far Beyond Driven
Premium
join:2004-08-30
Newark, OH
| Re: Greed said by robertfl :Were being mind fucked because the assholes at the corporate top want CONTROL at what we view, see say and do. Agreed. Now if only a majority of consumers would educate themselves on the subject and complain loud and often to their ISP things might change. It's funny and sad that most consumers just take what's spoon fed to them from corporate America. | |
| defaultPlay
join:2007-11-30
Collegeville, PA
·Comcast
·Verizon FIOS
| If ths is the future of broadband... the future doesn't look bright.
Content is only going to become larger and demand more bandwidth when transferring all the HD content, digital music, and software. Putting restrictions on bandwidth is not the way to embrace future demands it's being ignorant.
Cable broadband needs to enhance and upgrade their systems and not further try to overcrowd and push their network's limits. | |
| voyager6868
join:2003-01-29
Waterloo, ON
·Bell Sympatico
| How to become a millionaire in one month I'm going to start up a new DSL offering.
$15/month for a 10/10 Mbps connection.
And in very, very small print:
Service is capped at 1 byte/month. Overage charge is $100/byte with no monthly maximum.
After the first month, all customers would have to sell their homes and declare bankruptcy, and I'd be rich as h*ll. | |
|
|
|
·