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- RustyJ, on 04/10/2008, -4/+79I don't think the major ISP's can effectively do this without losing a good portion of their business. I'm sure that even if they actually start capping, filtering, etc., smaller companies will come through to snatch up their lost profits. Or at least I hope so.
- sdrawkcaB, on 04/10/2008, -0/+58For the last like 5-7 years Bell Canada had unlimited bandwidth. They only recently announce they are capping at 60GB again. Old customers with contracts still have unlimited bandwidth though. Backwards is the new advancement in technology.
- noumuon, on 04/10/2008, -6/+47charging per gigabyte is no different than charging per byte as a gigabyte is a specific amount of bytes.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+39If you look at what happened on the cable TV side of things over the years you can see where this is going with ISP's. First they offer low priced services to get the public to spend tax dollars for right of ways and wiring up every town and city. Once they have that, they cry that they didn't get enough people to buy their service to operate at a profit. So up go the rates. After that it's bundled services like with comcast in my area you have to buy cable tv to get their broadband service. Before you know it you will be paying 100 dollars a month for the old 300 baud service it's craptastic!
- theone3, on 04/10/2008, -2/+31How did that train get there in the first place?
- BoneheadFarker, on 04/10/2008, -0/+27I pay for a package that offers unlimited use and 5M speeds...I expect unlimited use and 5M speeds. I think I'm entitled to it, because that's what they offered and that's what I'm paying for. But some ISPs feel that they can change the definition of "unlimited". If it's not unlimited but they are advertising it as unlimited, then that is false advertising. Do not offer something that you can't afford to give...
- ligyron, on 04/10/2008, -0/+25I just got a letter from my service provider notifying me that I now have a monthly download limit of 60gb. If I go over that, it's $5 per gb (Canada)
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -51/+74Charge by the byte? Seriously? Come on now, get your facts straight.
Time Warner is charging high-bandwidth users (the 2% of the customers who use over 60% of the network's bandwidth) per GIGABYTE of transfer.
And this is just an experimental thing in certain cities, anyway. If it works for the company (which it doesn't look like it is, so far), then they'll roll this out into other areas. But don't expect this to happen soon.
This whole article is full of speculation and nonsense. Nothing to back it up other than rumors. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -2/+22No smaller company is ever going to do that. The cost involved in laying down all the cable is insane. We are slaves to our Telco and Cable masters until wireless stuff is ready for primetime.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -2/+22I'm not a shill. If I was, I'd be making more money. ;)
I'm merely pointing out a fact. - zen4444, on 04/10/2008, -0/+16Unless of course they bribe (oops I meant lobby) some politicians into passing laws to destroy their competition. It wouldn't be the first that has happened. It's much easier to excel at Washington than it is to excel in the marketplace.
- SniperSlap, on 04/10/2008, -0/+16People are so ***** stupid.
They seem to think that there is something to an internet connection worth charging more for.
This is the problem when people who don't understand get involved in accepting decisions made by the corporations. Stupid people always turn out to be very profitable. They'll agree to anything when it's packaged with the reason "you want more, you pay more".
In this instance, the stupid people don't realize they're simply having what they had taken away from them and then sold back for an extortionate price.
***** I hate it when markets go big, they just get completely ruined. - SourWorm, on 04/10/2008, -1/+17I thought most ISPs do charge based on connection speed already. Don't they have several different plans offering different up/down speeds?
- BoneheadFarker, on 04/10/2008, -1/+16If there is a cap, then it is limited. This is what I mean by ISPs changing the definition of "unlimited".
- cwgannon, on 04/10/2008, -0/+14Hahaha. Have you seen the "competition" between cell phone providers? Double-digit centage to send a text message, unless you have a plan, in which case you'll still pay the same amount for those messages unless you send a bunch of them. Almost all "nights" now begin at 7 pm. Any ridiculous amount of seconds stands a chance to be rounded up to the whole minute. The list goes on.
Competition in the biggest American industries is a joke. - Sandkat, on 04/10/2008, -1/+15If he lived in America.
- RiverBelow, on 04/10/2008, -1/+14Hello fellow Canadians. I recently had a run-in with my ISP (Cogeco Cable). They had a 60 GB bandwidth cap and would disconnect you if you went over. Anyways after a fight, I cancelled my cable/internet, and started looking for alternative ISPs. I found a little company called yak. yak definitely has slower speeds for things such as Xbox Live, although its barely noticeable unless you've got a computer running BitTorrent or something. My torrents on average go 200-300 KBPS faster than what they were on Cogeco's [throttling] network.
Their customer service is wonderful too. I've really enjoyed my experience with yak and if you're a Canadian customer looking for an alternative to Bell/Cogeco, I think yak has been the one. Note, I've only been on it for a month or so now, so maybe things good happen, but its been 100% uptime so I have complaints about that. - EBFoxbat, on 04/10/2008, -19/+31First off charging by gigabyte IS charging by byte, you'll just have to do some division. $1.50 per gigabyte is 1.39x10^-9 cents per byte, that's not factually inaccurate.
And speaking of "full of speculation" with no facts, where does it say the top2% use 60% of the bandwidth They aren't limited to the same same 16 Mbps bandwidth? How can they be using 60% ?
I hate the thought of paying per bit. But the fact remains, most ISP are in over their head. They have to do something. Perhaps they should limit bandwidth, say 2 Mbps and provide that and charge for that. Most people don't NEED more than that. Those that do should pay for it. It's wrong to think you are entitled to unlimited use and speed of internet access without paying for it. You have to be willing to pay. - uberkling, on 04/10/2008, -1/+13Seriously, consider yourselves lucky. This is the kind of crap we Aussies have to put up with:
Telstra Bigpond 600MB ADSL2+: 24Mbps down, upload data counted. 600mb monthly quota. Excess usage $150 AUD per gigabyte.
Just think about that for a second: You can burn your MONTH'S quota in under 3 minutes 40 seconds. This plan exists and people subscribe to it thinking it's normal.
This is a rather extreme example of a very "light usage" plan admitedly, but this kind of bloody inane mentality permeates our whole ISP industry over here. Trust me, you could have it a lot worse in America. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+11Its not as uncommon as you think it is.
- HoodyUK, on 09/08/2009, -1/+12no?
- midbc, on 04/10/2008, -0/+11paying for that speed and getting it is another thing
- cliffr39, on 04/10/2008, -2/+13EBFoxbat: "First off charging by gigabyte IS charging by byte". Math-wise yes, but that is not how Time Warner is testing it.. so not the same in this situation.
"where does it say the top2% use 60% of the bandwidth" -- It says "around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth" and you can find it here: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN16 ...
As for the "pay for it" comment, we do pay for it. The service is advertised as X, we should get X (whatever download speed they claim it to be with unlimited traffic). I think the $45/mo we pay now is MORE than enough for this service, no need to change it and charge me more for less usage.
Just think, Windows alone releases all their updates online which is several hundred megabytes. Then, you go over to netflix.com and legally "rent" a movie which streams to you... several hundred more megabytes. This new pricing system would not be right. - Krpano, on 04/10/2008, -1/+11They are trying to profit from piracy ?!
- remccain, on 04/10/2008, -0/+10and make sure you read the part of the contract that states "we can change this contract at any time without notice and screw you and you can't do a damn thing about it. Bwahahaha!"
I love that part of the contract. - Amazetbm, on 04/10/2008, -0/+10The problem is that there is a duopoly going on in a lot of big cities. Due to consolidation and contracts with municipalities, you have either the big phone company or the big cable company to choose from...and nothing else. Both are out to screw over the customer
- mckinnej, on 04/10/2008, -0/+10Dial-up here we come!
- MiDri, on 04/10/2008, -1/+10You'd pay for 5gb -- their not going to Math.floor it for you.
- krammit, on 04/10/2008, -0/+9They'd probably just round up to 5GB. Phone companies do that all the time.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -3/+12You're absolutely correct. The major ISPs are in too heated of a competition with each other to start doing stupid crap like this, and they're not about to start.
This article was written by some "insider" at Time Warner who probably just got canned and is taking the piss through Wired. - niceguyjohnny, on 04/10/2008, -4/+12Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
- EBFoxbat, on 04/10/2008, -1/+9Charging for a bit is much much different than charging for a bit per second.
- jerwin, on 04/10/2008, -1/+9OK, let me try to explain what is going on here with the service providers. They are what is known as the 'tolls under the bridge' in that they control the last mile of connectivity to the home (the bridge). As they begin to see more and more uses for the bridge, more and more services into the home through the broadband connection, they are seriously concerned about becoming irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The biggest thing the service providers fear is becoming 'just a pipe' that they can charge $30 bucks a month for while all of the services using that pipe are raking in the big dollars.
They are ALL working very hard to figure out several things. First, they are getting into the service offering business (Comcast triple play etc) so they can grab a chunk of that pie. Second, and I know this for a fact, their goal is to create a total 'walled garden' in the home network. This means you get all of your networking equipment from your service provider and you have NO ability to change anything without them getting involved.
Meaning, if they can drive the market this way, you can't even open a port to use your Xbox without them doing it for you, and tacking an extra $1.99 onto your monthly bill for that open port. No more streaming video without their permission, and tariff. One of the major things Microsoft (don't hurt me, just an example) is concerned about is that these potential tariffs can dramatically affect their business models for things like LIVE, One Care and the like (as if...). All of the major consumer product and consumer service companies are going to fight this out with the service providers over the next few years as the 'trolls' work to prevent themselves from becoming 'just a pipe' providers.
When you think about alternate last mile technologies like ClearWire, mesh etc, the disadvantage they have is speed and interference. Wireless is just not going to work over the greater markets without private spectrum, which isn't available. 3G may be an alternative, but anything wireless will suffer when the masses adopt it, so the wired options are the best. This puts some control into the cable and dsl operators to protect their turf, but they know if they go to far, either the public revolts or the government will step in.
It will be an interesting battle, and the skirmishes are beginning. - wirelesshnic, on 04/10/2008, -0/+8You make a good point. This could change how the internet does business. People should not pay by the bite to download ads for Snorg t-shirts. But then how do the sites make money? The ISP’s sure as hell are not going to pay them.
It could also stifle user uploaded content sites such as YouTube. I don’t see people wanting to pay by the bite to watch the two girls one cup video or to rick roll people. A social network user would also have to watch his trips to MySpace or face book to avoid going over his limit like a cell phone plan. On that note imagine internet plans designed like cell phone plans with contracts, limits, and prepaid usage. Let us hope it doesn’t come to that. - modafroman, on 04/10/2008, -1/+9Oh please, Australia is getting ***** so much more than canada. $129/mo for 60gb uploads and downloads for a 21mbit/256kbit connection? ***** *****.
- xTYFIGHTERx, on 04/10/2008, -0/+8What a giant step backwards
- wirelesshnic, on 04/10/2008, -0/+7Imagine what this is going to do for people who use WiFi, people “borrowing” it from their neighbors or the local Starbucks. This could have a big impact on people just leaching from other people to meet their bandwidth needs. Just a thought
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+7Charging per speed package is pretty standard for ISPs in the US.
- fred13snow, on 04/10/2008, -0/+7I just busted my download cap of 100GB @ 16Mbps. With over 300GB of downloads I could have received a Gigantic Bill in the mail. My ISP charges me 1.00$ a GB, up to a maximum of 30$.
But an other ISP (in Montreal) offers 50Mbps speed but with a 50GB Download cap, 1.50$ a GB extra, no limit...
What the hell is up with this? Super Fast internet, but you can't do anything with it. Considering youtube videos are now a a cap of 1GB, thats 50 "youtube" videos and you blew it. Apple TV? Xbox dowloads? Online Rentals?
"Lets do as the big oil", says ISPs - BushIs12thCylon, on 04/10/2008, -8/+14I pay $79.95 a month for 6GB of traffic and a 5Mbit connection.
Please stop whining. - hexydes, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6I am probably the biggest supporter of capitalism that you will ever find, but honestly...I'm starting to believe that it is impossible for companies to become a certain size, without "breaking" the ideas that make capitalism so successful. It's really sad, because competition drives so many things...new innovation, making sure the better product wins, etc. However, eventually these mega corporations become so big, have so many resources, and have their hands in so many different areas, that they begin to be a bit like Neo in the Matrix, where they can take the rules of the system (the system being capitalism), and bend them such that they can do whatever they want in that world.
It's really sad. I keep telling myself I'm wrong, but you have the record industry, movie industry, TV industry, ISPs, cell industry, software industry...all of them seem to be dominated by one or two major players that do nothing but work across industries to reward each other and absolute dominate the customers that they are supposedly working for. And then capitalism is supposed to keep that in check (wherein customers leave and go to a better service), but at that point, the few players there are in the game are so powerful that, assuming another option ever emerges (which it rarely does), it just either gets overpowered temporarily to drive them out of business, or barring that, simply bought outright and engulfed.
That's not capitalism. It might be corporatism, or it might be something else. What I do know is that it is a poison in our country, and unless we figure out the antidote soon, our entire information industry is going to be dominated by 2-3 mega-conglomo-corps that "compete" with each other for a market that consists of the entire country (if not world). - christophocles, on 04/10/2008, -1/+7jeez that's pathetic. Worst I've ever heard of. I'd be almost ashamed to admit that. You could probably get a better deal on broadband in the mountains of afghanistan.
- Razenoth, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6I am also with Cogeco right now on the 60GB Plan (10 mbps/ 640kbps) and this is what is in their terms of service.
COGECO monitors the amount of traffic to and from all
modems to identify usage above the bandwidth limitations. If
the Customer exceeds this limit, the Customer may be charged
up to an additional $1.00 per 100 Megabytes for both upstream
and/or downstream traffic.
I have gone over a couple times by maybe 10 gigs and no additional charges have been added yet. But $1.00/ 100 Megabytes is outrageous. - vincentweber, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6Is renting/buying a lot of movies on an Apple PC piracy?
- vincentweber, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6I believe not. We have the EU behind us. Just like they putt a stop to the insanely large bills cellphone providers had send us when we called outside the country, the EU will most likely not let this happen either. It seems the EU is not ruled by large company overlords and the EU cares almost only about customers.
- Hodr, on 04/10/2008, -0/+61048576th byte, but whos counting?
- DeadFrost, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6I'm in the wrong business, I need to start my own Broadband company so I can shake my money maker...Ill give you all the best bandwidth possible and I promise my technicians wont put pubic hair in your equipment!
- racco, on 04/10/2008, -16/+22***** that!
- Kyrgizion, on 04/10/2008, -6/+12Glad to live in Europe... for now.
I have no doubt this is in store for us, as well, though. It'll just take a bit longer. - BushIs12thCylon, on 04/10/2008, -1/+6Yup. Sadly, I live in New Zealand. I left out I can purchase more bandwidth, at $5 per 3GB.
Incidentally, this is the premium plan. -
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