ISP and their download caps - really necessary?

[MacBH928]

This is what I am trying to explain to others... GBs became modern day MBs. You can easily find an app that has a 500MB-1Gb update, online backups, streaming HD...etc . If the technology exists (fiber), why limit it?

On Virgin media cable (154mb down and 12mb up) with absolutely no usage limits at all. There is no way I'd ever consider an ISP with limits in this day and age - I use far too much data. For example, I had to restore a 2TB online crashplan backup this month after a disk failure - if I was limited then online backup would be unusable

How much do you pay? How long did it take you to backup 2TB with 12mb? Do you use BackBlaze?

 

[Phil A.]

This is what I am trying to explain to others... GBs became modern day MBs. You can easily find an app that has a 500MB-1Gb update, online backups, streaming HD...etc . If the technology exists (fiber), why limit it?



How much do you pay? How long did it take you to backup 2TB with 12mb? Do you use BackBlaze?

I think it took around 3 weeks to backup the data originally - it was only about 1.5TB that was added when I first backed up (it's grown to 2TB since)

I pay $14 a month for the Crashplan family plan which gives unlimited backups for up to 10 computers. Never used backblaze as I've been very happy with Crashplan and not seen the need to shop around for alternatives

 

[garirry]

On the brighter side, gigabit unlimited fibre for $149.99/month isn't the worst deal.

True, but for fiber Internet, I find the upload limit to 100Mbps to be way too much when you have 1Gbps download. Seriously, I may be noobing out on this, but why are upload speeds 10x slower than the download speed? I don't get it.

 

[JackieInCo]

This is what I am trying to explain to others... GBs became modern day MBs. You can easily find an app that has a 500MB-1Gb update, online backups, streaming HD...etc . If the technology exists (fiber), why limit it?

Back when I had CenturyLink, I easily used over 250GB most months. Some of that was in one day by downloading whole TV show series from iTunes such as 24.

The only month in seven years that I got a usage warning was when I filled a whole 1TB drive of downloaded content. I believe their cap was about 300GB or so but they were obviously very lenient with that. I only switched to Comcast when my CenturyLink DSL service went down for an entire week.

 

[fat jez]

True, but for fiber Internet, I find the upload limit to 100Mbps to be way too much when you have 1Gbps download. Seriously, I may be noobing out on this, but why are upload speeds 10x slower than the download speed? I don't get it.

Probably a legacy thing going back to dialup and ADSL, where you are still fundamentally using the same technology, i.e. modulating a digital signal onto an analogue signal across a range of frequencies. Since most people download more than they upload, they allocate more download frequencies from the range available.

In the UK, it is possible to get symmetrical downloads and uploads, Google SDSL. It's not very fast (2Mbps each way, but there is no contention with other users).

 

[gsmornot]

Comcast has been adding data caps in cities and continues to expand the program. Currently most areas, including mine, are limited to 300GB a month. I have gone over every month I've had the service at a cost of $10 for every 50GB over 300GB. Comcast has recently made an offer in Florida that will let you pay $30 more per month for unlimited. Prior to all this, they had 250GB caps and would turn your service off or disconnect you completely with no future service if you broke the cap. There has to be a competitor out there somewhere that wants to come in and take a shot at the areas that are only served by Comcast. A cap is hard to keep anymore. I mean, iOS updates alone for 8 devices in the house at over a gig per device at times plus app updates that take advantage of the iOS updates and its easy right there to have 10-15GB used in just about a half hour. The speeds are good, the service is good but the cap stinks.

 

[Nermal]

True, but for fiber Internet, I find the upload limit to 100Mbps to be way too much when you have 1Gbps download. Seriously, I may be noobing out on this, but why are upload speeds 10x slower than the download speed? I don't get it.

I guess it's mainly due to historical reasons and/or ISPs "optimising" their profits. The local provider here offers up to 200 Mb/s upstream, so I could pay for symmetrical 100/100 or 200/200 service if I wanted it (although 200/200 is fairly expensive).

The top end plan (1000/500) doesn't have a symmetrical option, but I think that's for legitimate technical reasons. It's not available in my town yet anyway!

 

[MacBH928]

True, but for fiber Internet, I find the upload limit to 100Mbps to be way too much when you have 1Gbps download. Seriously, I may be noobing out on this, but why are upload speeds 10x slower than the download speed? I don't get it.

I think the reason is that any internet connection has a limited bandwidth, ex 50mb. Since people do more download than upload they reserve the majority for the download and less for upload so it looks something like 40mbps down 10mbps up. They probably can adjust it however they want.

Comcast has been adding data caps in cities and continues to expand the program. Currently most areas, including mine, are limited to 300GB a month. I have gone over every month I've had the service at a cost of $10 for every 50GB over 300GB. Comcast has recently made an offer in Florida that will let you pay $30 more per month for unlimited. Prior to all this, they had 250GB caps and would turn your service off or disconnect you completely with no future service if you broke the cap. There has to be a competitor out there somewhere that wants to come in and take a shot at the areas that are only served by Comcast. A cap is hard to keep anymore. I mean, iOS updates alone for 8 devices in the house at over a gig per device at times plus app updates that take advantage of the iOS updates and its easy right there to have 10-15GB used in just about a half hour. The speeds are good, the service is good but the cap stinks.

I don't understand how services like Netflix and 25GB games on Steam are popular in the US when they have such a low cap limit (300GB)

 

[fat jez]

I think the reason is that any internet connection has a limited bandwidth, ex 50mb. Since people do more download than upload they reserve the majority for the download and less for upload so it looks something like 40mbps down 10mbps up. They probably can adjust it however they want.

Certainly the case for ADSL/VDSL, there is a finite range of frequencies to carry upload or download signals, so since most download more than they upload, they weight it in this favour. To get balanced uploads and downloads, you're really looking for fibre to the premises.

Still tickles me that fundamentally our means of accessing the Internet (in the UK at least) hasn't changed since dialup days - we just use a massive range of frequencies as a bearer instead of cutting off at 8KHz.

 

[gsmornot]

I don't understand how services like Netflix and 25GB games on Steam are popular in the US when they have such a low cap limit (300GB)

Simply, you pay the price asked and wish it were not the case. People for the most part are willing to pay because it offers choice. If it could be cheaper that would be great.

 

[samiwas]

Download limits aren't a terrible thing, in theory. They keep some people from consistently bogging down bandwidth. Back when we had a fairly slow connection, my roommate ran a torrent box and I could not even use the internet. It simply didn't work because he hogged up every available bit and byte. Multiply this out into the world, and you could have a relative few people who constantly max out their connection, thus taking away access form others.

So, you have two choices: a slower rate, or a higher rate with a cap. At least until the technology improves enough for widespread super-high-speed connections and bandwidth. Given the two choices, I'll take the higher speed with a cap.

This is not to say that don't want high speed and no cap, but I just don't know if the infrastructure is quite up to the task yet.

Oddly enough, I say this as our neighborhood's speed seems to have dropped dramatically in the last month (noticed by numerous people), just shortly after Comcast introduced the super-fast connections. I'm wondering if a few people in the neighborhood got those connections and are now hogging bandwidth.

 

[0007776]

I guess it's mainly due to historical reasons and/or ISPs "optimising" their profits.

Probably, and I'm sure doing it allows them to keep the people on the higher tiers subsidizing the lower tiers so they can keep their lowest tiers cheap enough that a competitor won't be able to pull away enough customers to build out a new network that competes with them.

 

[MacBH928]

Simply, you pay the price asked and wish it were not the case. People for the most part are willing to pay because it offers choice. If it could be cheaper that would be great.

do you think $100 for 300GB/month is a fair price?
If not, what do you think should be a fair price?

 

[smallcoffee]

do you think $100 for 300GB/month is a fair price?
If not, what do you think should be a fair price?

That is DEFINITELY not a fair price.

More like $.01 for 300 gb. But really I'd say about $30/month for unlimited 100 up/10 down is a fair/good price for now, but that needs to continue to increase as data demands increase.

Data caps are bad for the economy.

 

[gsmornot]

do you think $100 for 300GB/month is a fair price?
If not, what do you think should be a fair price?

No. I pay $65 for 300GB now plus overage charges. $100 would be livable for unlimited I guess but we have to define this a little more. Comcast offers business plans that will give you no data cap service but there is yet another catch. For $120 per month you can get a business line that is slower (by half roughly) than the standard capped connection. It works out to be a better deal at the moment to pay overage fees for the faster connection up to 600GB in a month. Hope that makes sense.