Frontier Still Hinting At Caps, New Tiers

anything under 100GB is BS... 250GB is the sweet spot, and comcast knew this, why can't everyone else see this also... now WISP's need a lower cap obviously because of the technology behind it... 10GB would be the sweet spot there

Doing some quick performance tests with actual files yesterday and I easily could have creamed a month's worth of Frontier's potential caps.

I was using the 1GB test file from Optimum Online's FTP site and was downloading the entire file in less than 3 minutes. I downloaded the file about 3 or 4 times and uploaded it nearly the same number of times at about 7 minutes for the upload.

I could literally bust the 5GB cap in less than 15 minutes just messing around doing nothing of note.

Based on right where we are now.

I think in another 5 years, 250GB would be far, far too restrictive.

Most BB customers in Frontier DSL territory (myself included) have only one competitive carrier, or none at all (here, it's Time Warner Cable). No FiOS overbuilding in Frontier service areas means we suffer.

Good move, Frontier... keep driving away business with your ridiculous pricing, outdated and abysmally slow DSL speeds, and (coming soon) draconian download cap.

That's a problem to be delt with in 5 years then.

Something else is amiss here.

Sounds to me like they have oversold their market footprint and can't keep up with demand - 5GB cap? Moving customers to 3MG from 6MG. Oversold, over saturated and trying to devise a way to charge more. Let's play tiers. In the end, they'll get less - customers will move on to another vendor.

Oh noes, our T3 is sinking. Quick, cap the hatches.

What moron was sitting at the table and came up with 5GB? I do that in a day. Way to price gouge your customer base (the ones that, you know, let you stay in business) and putting up that hilarious statement on their website is like a slap in the face.

I hope they crumble in this wave of financial hardship. A company like this failing is the only upside of the crap going on. Sad for the workers though.

Frontier needs to get some of the federal bailout money for broadband to deliver 10GB caps and 4 mbit service.

If they want to have caps (something I do not agree with since they should provide what you are paying for and being offered) it should be based on the speed tier you are being sold. If Tier A has twice the Speed as Tier B, it should also have AT LEAST twice the cap since that gives you the same FULL SPEED download time. If they feel that 5GB is "fair" at their lowest tier (I think it is WAY too low for anything past dial-up) then the higher tiers should have LARGER caps no smaller than the ratio of the tier speeds (It is OK to give better than proportional cap to higher tiers so that the user gets something more than just speed for the extra money).

The sweet spot is unlimited not 250gb. 250gb in 2005 would have been maybe, but not today.

You are equally well off with dial up than with this ISP.

I just downloaded the Halo Wars 1.5GB demo in a few minutes. This cap is ridiculous. You can only basically browse webpages and e-mail. If you download a video, watch a movie, play an online game or anything you will easily exceed this cap. In a family home this thing is gone in 5mins. I do about 100GB average a month with zero piracy. Just some gaming, demos, and NetFlix in a single user connection.

5gb's is a joke this day an age, netflix on the 360 I bet would eat that up fast.

Verizon Wireless gives you a 5GB cap on their wireless internet plan. Go figure with Frontears - Leaving their customers crying for better service.

But the people who whine about whiners will say that their usage hasn't gone up as their speeds have. I call BS, but they insist...

I'm currently on a 512/??? connection over wireless right now. It's really hard to get above about 20GB per month on it due to lousy connection quality. The cap is 25GB, though they apparently don't enforce it too much.

back in Colorado on cable, I routinely use 80GB+ per month, with spikes up to maybe 120-150GB. If I used online backup, I'd probably be pushing 300GB per month. If there was no cap on a 22/5 plan, I'd probably push 300-400GB per month.

That said, speed-proportional caps should be the way to go...

Mmmmm FiOS but Verizon is bad. Eye-roll.

Heh I creamed that amount of data last night. It only takes a few hours of a Source game, as well as some slight internet radio and some foruming, as well as managing a game server to push me past 5GB. That, plus I have a lot of devices. Last month both of my DSL lines pushed a combined total of 320GB. This included YouTube HD, GameTrailers HD, game patches (big ones), game purchases (Steam), Windows Patches, Internet Radio, apps and YouTube on the iPod Touch, some data for a LAN party I hosted, web browsing, files for a game server (which were downloaded and then uploaded to the server, totaled 1GB download, 1GB upload), and this is just my usage alone. Others in my family pushed my usage up.

You're not going to get "unlimited".. that was a lesson learned WAY back in the 90's that unlimited didn't pay.

250 is just fine, for these days. My only issue is that the so called ceiling is a "limit".. and limits are not acceptable. When the so called "limit" is hit, they need to either throttle speeds down to a much lower level, OR charge for overage.

Caps and tiers are nothing new to the internet... just residential services is all. If you give someone or a large group of people 'unlimited' anything, there will always be some that abuse it. ANYONE with an ounce of brains knows that you can't lasso in those that do abuse something while not treating everyone else the same way... ask any class action lawyer that.

Thank god Embarq did not sell to this lousy company !

I cringe every time I hear "Frontier" !!!

Frontier offers me 3Mbps/384kbps which is what I've had ever since I was hooked up (one of the first to get hooked up too). Since the holidays, as of two weeks ago Frontier had ran out of bandwidth in our area. Thankfully, I was able to find out that they were in fact bringing in more bandwidth, and they did as I'm on an entirely new route now. The old route is still up and running as well as I'm not seeing my pings go up and speeds drop anymore

So really, it seems as though Frontier wants people to enjoy the service and use it as unlimited, but yet it also seems like they can't make up their mind. In my case, they've been getting hook ups in my area basically every day despite cable internet being around, which is why we ran out of bandwidth in the first place.

So yeah, last move Frontier should ever consider is capping people. Especially with them having fiber optic cabling fueling their COs, there's no reason they should be thinking about caps.

Oh, the drama.. I love it. "draconian"..

Verizon, a local incumbent telephone company, generally does NOT over build someone else territory. There has been one peep of it happening in TX.. but you don't see telco over build other telco like cable providers do.

So in all the drama, there is nothing new to see here. The overwhelming majority of areas in the US have choice 1 or 2 for wire-line internet.

What gets me even more is that you guys all sit back here like spoiled children at the age of 10.. thinking that mommy and daddy have unlimited pockets lined with money that can just give you anything you ask for or stomp your feet and cry. (I guess some people don't learn their lessons)

After the "over sold" portion of this argument, when do you realize that they are changing their services, in your own words, to deliver what they are able to? Where does it say that Once you have it, you're entitled to keep it? Maybe they CAN'T offer it any more..

Further, in case you haven't noticed, money is tight and this time its affecting those on the top pretty hard too. People think that business is rich and money flows with out an issue.. and if they're broke, they can just... what ? ... 'borrow it'... has ANYONE taken a look at this countries net cash flow lately?

You're right.. customers will move to another vendor.. the company will be able to run leaner, and more tax dollar will ultimately run into their hands to prop them up down the road.

5GB caps are in fact worthless.. I don't dispute that. Where my issue lands is this mentality that "just give it to me" with out any thought on the reality of the workings of how the market place works.

Your Speed Tier says that you can download at the Tier's Speed Limit for up-to X minutes (until you reach that Tier's Download Cap [I am ignoring the contribution of uploading to the Cap to keep it simple]).

When you get a faster tier, you can download faster [which is what you are paying for]. While this does not mean that your usage will increase, it does mean that it CAN (since you get the old amount of work done faster, you have the ability to do extra work in the same amount of time you devoted to the old tier).I forget whose "Law" it was but there is one about work expanding to fill the time available (or something on that order).Which is basically what I was stating. If the ISP CLAIMS that there is a need to cap usage, they should not talk out of both sides of their mouth by setting Caps that do not take the tier's speed limits into account. The simplest way to insure "fair" caps is to set them based on usage TIME not VOLUME (even though you state them in Volume not Time terms since it is easier to measure). When we used Dial-Up (back in the early days), you WERE monitored/charged by TIME since the modem bank was a valuable resource. Now it is usage of the bandwidth not how long you stay connected (since there is minimal cost to maintain an idle connection).

"You're right.. customers will move to another vendor.. "

Seems like an easy way to shed the unprofitable customers.

I think that 5Gb is unreasonable as well, but it is their ball and if they want to take it and go home they can.

"So while Frontier has been whining about heavy users out of one side of their mouth, they're not really investing in the infrastructure to handle them, or giving these "heavy" 5Gbps+ users anywhere to really upgrade to."

That is the major problem with Frontier.
The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Case in point, out here they wanted to elevate the speed tier, just that they didn't want Wilderotter to know what they were up to. Reason being, they are getting creamed by Comcast and Surewest. We can see that the local customers got the short end of that stick.

Their Tier 1 link for the whole company is a T3, thats why.

I'll ask the Frontier guy who came to my home to check up on my connection the day after I called in about the former night time speed issues and find out what kind of connection the office in my area is using and was using before the upgrade. If it was a T3, it would have to be something that is fully fiber optic as even the RTs are fed by fiber optic cabling. Their main backbone itself is probably not a T3 though. Otherwise, I'd probably be seeing 2000+ latency on the line outside of the CO.

No ones is saying "just give it to me". I think many times folks forget that their customers ARE PAYING THEM MONEY for services. For many people, myself included, the argument stops there. ISPs aren't out there doing us favors, they are taking our money to provide a service.

Except you don't just go from "Now" to "Then".

The problem will grow worse quickly.

Upon reflection, I do not wish to post. Take me back!