Originally Posted by
Echofoot
While yes, I may never hit that cap personally, it sets a scary precedent. What with the rise and popularity of HD content, not to mention our increasing use of cloud based services, our dependace on huge bandwidth services is nearing a necessity. What's to hold these isps from setting the tune to what they want us to pay?
First off, the business/company/people that own the infrastructure get to dictate what you as a customer pay to use said service. This is true for natural gas, water, elecricity, etc. They paid to install the equipment necessary to bring this service to your door and they have to pay to maintain it. So it's only logical they can dictate how you use it and how much. For example, in some places in the summer when conditions become drought-like, many cities will say "no more watering your lawn" as they're trying to conserve water to ensure we all have what we need to live.
Secondly, you're allowed to not use any service you don't wish to. Nobody is forcing you to be on the internet. Don't want to be held to the ISP's standards of usage, simply don't sign on with them. If you want it, you have to pay. To quote one of my all time favorite Sci-Fi novels "TANSTAAFL" (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch)
"The real problem ISPs want to fix is congestion due to limited infrastructure. Cable customers share what are known as local loops, and the more that your neighbors use their connection, the less bandwidth is available to you — a situation that becomes painfully clear in the evening, when cable users see their throughput fall"
Already most, if not all ISP's oversubscribe their segments. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available. If only two people are using it, there's a whole lot less congestion than if 250 are. There's a formula that can be used to calculate the maximum number of users a segment (what the article calls a "local loop") can support. Just for example, let's say the number for your segment is 150. Chances are, your segment is supporting more like 250 users. All fighting over the same limited amount of bandwidth. Add on to that the bittorrent users and you're lucky you can load web pages quickly at all during peak hours. For more information on network congestion google "contention based network" and do a little reading. The internet is a contention based network.
The ISP's are never going to "fix congestion" because they're the ones responsible for it at the home level because they do, and will continue to oversubscribe the segments to make more $$$. Better infrastructure would help, but that's a very expensive consideration and we're already paying enough as it is. You don't expect your ISP to donate the cost of fiber optic to your house for free do you? Or provide you with a fiber based network interface?
The people running programs like bittorrent 24/7 who deal in up/downloading of illegal software, movies, and music are the worst bandwidth hogs. Why shouldn't they have to pay more than the average user who never exceeds his limit? Personally, the ONLY people I think will complain about this system are those thieves who like to call themselves "pirates".
Bandwidth caps should not be an issue for the average user. If you rely that much on streaming HD video to your TV I might recommend you invest in a DVD player to avoid that issue.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
***William Ernest Henley***
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