Don't drink the flavor-aid.

The 5% of the customers using 95% of the bandwidth that has been bandied about so many times by various ISPs and regurgitated by the media companies they own, but has never been proven with actual figures AFAIK

The war is against the internet stealing customers away from other owned media.

So they must be lying, and because they won't admit they're lying, that must be the proof that they're lying.

While it may not actually be 5% of the users using 95%, I'm sure the numbers are fairly indicative that a small percentage is using a lot of bandwidth, and it doesn't sound too far fetched.

Some interesting comments and links here: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Theres-No-Data-To-Prove-Metered-Billing-Is-Necessary-101824

Compare it with the rest of the world, North America is being left in the dust due to the conflicting interests of the media companies that control it all.

The guy's comments about everything being "fixed" costs shows that he knows little about business and economics, so I can't put very much faith into what he says is facts.

Compared to the rest of the advanced world, America has the largest continent next to Russia, but at least Russia, Europe and South America are all divided up into smaller countries who are responsible for just a portion of land to cover for high speed internet.

The claims that its more "evil media" trying to spoon feed consumers is more of the same "I don't want to believe it, so the media must be lying" type BS. If people refuse to believe it, then there's nothing I can do to change their minds.

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Technically, the ISPs could have simply shut down anyone running P2P on their networks, since you are essentially "serving" up content on the internet and most home contracts do not allow end-users to run servers, but then there would have been a backlash of people insisting that the internet is supposed to be open, and that people should be able to run whatever they want on their machines, and would have lambasted any and all ISPs who cut people's accounts publicly. It would have been a PR nightmare.

Unfortunately, they did not simply cut off anyone who violated their ToS by running a server (A "bittorrent" server), but Comcast got cute. They were sniffing their network, and they were sending out spoofed RST packets.

That's incredibly dumb. Sure, it slows down torrents, but it does not make them stop. The torrent authors can work to make their protocol look even less like "torrents" and more like HTTP.

So, instead of contacting problem customers and reminding them of their terms of service, they got caught "discriminating" against certain protocols.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation started complaining about how they weren't protocol neutral, and that ended up at the FCC, and Comcast lost.

As a result, a broadband provider cannot enforce bandwidth limits by protocol, or discriminate based on rules like "no servers." They can only limit by bandwidth.

So, in the U.S., thanks to Comcast and the E.F.F., we get bandwidth caps and tiered service.

It's a perfect example of "be careful what you ask for...."

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Technically, the ISPs could have simply shut down anyone running P2P on their networks, since you are essentially "serving" up content on the internet and most home contracts do not allow end-users to run servers, but then there would have been a backlash of people insisting that the internet is supposed to be open, and that people should be able to run whatever they want on their machines, and would have lambasted any and all ISPs who cut people's accounts publicly. It would have been a PR nightmare.

Unfortunately, they did not simply cut off anyone who violated their ToS by running a server (A "bittorrent" server), but Comcast got cute. They were sniffing their network, and they were sending out spoofed RST packets.

That's incredibly dumb. Sure, it slows down torrents, but it does not make them stop. The torrent authors can work to make their protocol look even less like "torrents" and more like HTTP.

So, instead of contacting problem customers and reminding them of their terms of service, they got caught "discriminating" against certain protocols.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation started complaining about how they weren't protocol neutral, and that ended up at the FCC, and Comcast lost.

As a result, a broadband provider cannot enforce bandwidth limits by protocol, or discriminate based on rules like "no servers." They can only limit by bandwidth.

So, in the U.S., thanks to Comcast and the E.F.F., we get bandwidth caps and tiered service.

It's a perfect example of "be careful what you ask for...."

Oh, I absolutely agree. Comcast's network throttling idea was very stupid, and IMO it opens the doors for all sorts of potentially bad ideas of throttling if it were allowed to continue. At least caps is/are a more legit practice than throttling, even if the change upsets some spoiled users.

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Go ahead believe what you like.

Pay for what is advertised and be unable to use it.
60 GB lasts how long at the speeds they are promising?

I see companies choking the highway on-ramps to suit themselves.

Sure the country is big, but sufficient connectivity and capacity is there unless you are off in the boonies.

Check out what transit and gigabytes really cost, it may surprise you how you are being ripped off by the gatekeepers.


UncleVom

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Pay for what is advertised and be unable to use it.
60 GB lasts how long at the speeds they are promising?

That's just it, the "advertisedments" and existing business model were wrong and now the companies are trying to correct that mistake.

60GB can last real long, even at those speeds if all you do is browse the web really fast and check your email really fast.

I see companies choking the highway on-ramps to suit themselves.

I see companies stuggling to offer high speeds to everyone because so much of it is saturated by people using P2P and torrents. I see upset people because this is the end of their free ride to unlimited bandwidth and they're only concerned about themselves and not the costs to the companies.

Sure the country is big, but sufficient connectivity and capacity is there unless you are off in the boonies.

Really? According to what stats? Most stats consider that if even one home in a zipcode is capable of receiving broadband, that the entire zipcode is considered "covered". Most certainly there is not enough capacity were every American to sign up and use the network at full throttle. Putting caps is one way to ensure that there's enough bandwidth for everyone.

Check out what transit and gigabytes really cost, it may surprise you how you are being ripped off by the gatekeepers.

As someone in IT, I know there's a lot more to costs than the average consumer might think. Even in business, there's a difference between the cost of an item and the item's "true cost" after all factors are considered. I believe that most people think cost is simple and flat, and that is simply not true.

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Pay for what is advertised and be unable to use it.
60 GB lasts how long at the speeds they are promising?

That's just it, the "advertisedments" and existing business model were wrong and now the companies are trying to correct that mistake.

I'm not even sure that is the case. The business model is based on "user" usage patterns -- no servers allowed.

I know that P2P protocols are "clients" in a marketing sense, but as servers go, they have an amazing ability to suck up bandwidth.

If the customers adhere to the Terms of Service, I think the business model works.

Take away the right to enforce the ToS, and then the business model does not work.

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Pay for what is advertised and be unable to use it.
60 GB lasts how long at the speeds they are promising?

That's just it, the "advertisedments" and existing business model were wrong and now the companies are trying to correct that mistake.

I'm not even sure that is the case. The business model is based on "user" usage patterns -- no servers allowed.

I know that P2P protocols are "clients" in a marketing sense, but as servers go, they have an amazing ability to suck up bandwidth.

If the customers adhere to the Terms of Service, I think the business model works.

Take away the right to enforce the ToS, and then the business model does not work.

Right, but it would be hard to define precisely what a "server" is when regarding running software. What about RDP? What about private VPNs? You close one gap by saying "No servers", and then you're going to have a bunch of people screen bloody murder because you cut them off, they want you to cut off everything else "to be fair". It enters tedious territory that would be better off avoided. A safer alternative is to change the business model to level the playing field.

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You are not talking the internet.

You are talking about companies who have under provisioned neighborhoods and now trying to milk their outdated investment for as long as possible.

Technology has moved on and peoples expectations have changed. The internet and the content have changed.

Some ISPs seem to be gaining a handle on the local bandwidth situation offering ftth or docsis 3.0, are planning on making money doing it and have a viable technological future for a few years anyway.

BTW according to Cisco who should know about these things the majority of current internet usage is http not p2p or torrents. Google for the info if you care. How does that fit the story?

Do you know what the real costs to an ISP are?
I think I have a clue, I'm not your "average consumer".

I see the TW move as a desperate grab that would probably set a dangerous precedent, but I don't see most people buying it when they can compare it to other companies offerings.

I really don't have a problem with pay for what you use, but I do have a problem with blatant ripoffs, especially ones which pave the way for heavy milking as the so called "average user's" typical requirements change.


UncleVom

PS The reason for the "no servers" on many TV cable based systems was the lack of upload bandwidth, IIRC this was improved somewhat by docsis 2.0 and is hugely improved with docsis 3.0.

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Have to admit i find this thread quite amusing.

Here is a plan from one of the top 3 Australian ISPs.
1500/256kbps
4GB peak, 8GB off peak, Shaped to 64k if you go over.
Aus $59.95/month.

There are plenty of plans out there that are much worse value.


My ISPs plan that i'm on is
8000/364kbs
40GB, shaped to 64k if you go over.
Aus $90/month.

US $55 for 40GB sounds pretty damn good to me.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Have to admit i find this thread quite amusing.

Here is a plan from one of the top 3 Australian ISPs.
1500/256kbps
4GB peak, 8GB off peak, Shaped to 64k if you go over.
Aus $59.95/month.

There are plenty of plans out there that are much worse value.


My ISPs plan that i'm on is
8000/364kbs
40GB, shaped to 64k if you go over.
Aus $90/month.

US $55 for 40GB sounds pretty damn good to me.

Ouch!
I pay Cdn $34.95 for 5000/800 100GB adsl which works fine for me for now and I like the ISP and have been a customer for 7 years. My home bandwidth consumption is between 30 and 60GB a month normally.
Another ISP offers unlimited for the same price and 200GB cap for $29.95.
Oops there is 5% tax to be added to those prices.

Both of these companies have been around for a while and AFAIK are making money even after paying the phone company (rumoured to be around $22 per subscriber FWIW) for local loop and connectivity to their own point of presence and then paying their own connectivity, peering and bandwidth costs for the internet access. Both companies have connections to multiple wholesale transit providers.


UncleVom

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My ISPs plan that i'm on is
8000/364kbs
40GB, shaped to 64k if you go over.
Aus $90/month.

US $55 for 40GB sounds pretty damn good to me.

My old connection was 8-12Mbit/1Mbit (stretchable on demand)
no cap
€79,95 per 4 weeks.

My new connection is 20Mbit/1Mbit
no cap
€50.- per 4 weeks, which is according to the latest conversion rates, Aus $ 91.42

So I don't know. ;-)

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As for what we use it for:

Seeing the amount of Life (series, seasons 1 & 2), Bones (series, season 4), NCIS (series, season 6), House MD (series, season 5) and the Wolverine leak (movie) we downloaded in just the past 4 weeks... um, 40GB wouldn't do it for us.

(I agree fully with the mods decision if they don't want this information in plain view, that this post can be removed)

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Both of these companies have been around for a while and AFAIK are making money even after paying the phone company (rumoured to be around $22 per subscriber FWIW) for local loop and connectivity to their own point of presence

Quite a few ISPs have their own ADSL2+ equipment in some exchanges, and their prices are often simliar (or better) than the price i pay for ADSL1 and often with lager download quotas. The main telcommunications company (Telstra) also has ADSL2+ equipment in some exchanges, but their pricing is obscene, as is any other ISP that uses their equipment (which is most of them).

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Grant
Darwin NT

As for what we use it for:
.....

Similar situation here in Australia.
Supposedly we have the highest level of P2P traffic per capita of net users in the world, which isn't surprising.
The local TV channels either take a couple of years to show a TV series, or they don't show it at all. Likewise, it can be as much as 6 months after the rest of the world gets a movie release before it's released here. And as for music- if it's not in the top 40, it's not available in the local shops. Ask the local distributor about it & 99 times out of 100 they don't have it & can't/won't get it. That 1 time they don't have it but will get it, the price is too ridiculous for words. (Try Aus$55 or more (plus postage!), when new releases are around Aus $30). As for older movies- it's not even worth trying.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Do you know what the real costs to an ISP are?
I think I have a clue, I'm not your "average consumer".

I run an ISP. I know exactly what my costs are.

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We'd like to make enough speed and data tiers available so that it's possible for customers to reduce their monthly Internet bill based on the choices they make

Since when does a for-profit company care about reducing your bill. It's like a store raising prices then having a "sale". You still end up paying more.

I run all my torrent traffic thru LISP. That stands for Ludd's Internet Service Provider. Those pre-planted billing errors always pay for themselves.

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me@rescam.org

Do you know what the real costs to an ISP are?
I think I have a clue, I'm not your "average consumer".

I run an ISP. I know exactly what my costs are.

That would pretty much be a requirement. :-)

Would you like to share your take on the situation?
Without giving away any vital info, just in a general way.


UncleVom

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Do you know what the real costs to an ISP are?
I think I have a clue, I'm not your "average consumer".

I run an ISP. I know exactly what my costs are.

That would pretty much be a requirement. :-)

Would you like to share your take on the situation?
Without giving away any vital info, just in a general way.

UncleVom

It costs more than you think. At least an order of magnitude more.

A few customers use the bulk of the resources. 5%/95% seems conservative.

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Thanks Ned.
An order of magnitude? hmmm.

I think that might be pushing it, even TW's charges would look like a bargain then. ;-)

I understand the need to oversell and that everybody can't max out their connection all the time. I personally don't think capped usage and overage charges are out of line per se, in fact with current trends it may be the
sustainable plan. I do think TW's move in the direction is a plain money grab and an attempt to avoid competition with their other media offerings.

I know of an ISP that has been pretty open with their costs, capacity and usage so I think I actually have a pretty good handle on the situation.

In my neck of the woods the aggressive pricing of Cogent seems to make them the current route of choice for many independent ISPs. (This is not an advertisement merely an observation.)


UncleVom

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Well before Comcast announced the fabled 250gb cap, I was wondering just how much usage it would take before I got some kind of notice saying that I'm using too much, and there was a post over on dslreports in the Comcast forum by somebody who claimed they worked in an area that knows what the actual values are for a lot of these "estimated" and "guessed" things.

One of which was bandwidth usage. Nobody really knew, and it turns out, it was available all along. Buried deep in the fine print (somewhere), the actual ruling (before the cap) was that if you were using too much..enough to affect other customers on your node, you were sent a notice in the mail essentially saying "cut back on your usage, or upgrade to the next tier. failure to comply within 30 days will result in suspension of your account. suspended accounts will not be re-opened for a period of six months."

It did not mention anything about extra fees/charges, though I would imagine there would be some.

Also, regarding the ISP "monitoring" what you do.. There was a federal district court judge back in 2002 that passed a ruling telling all ISPs in the US that they are obligated to inform the authorities if a customer "appears to be" using large amounts of bandwidth for what would be suspected of being distribution of copywritten media. Notice there is a lot of vagueness in all of that. It's more along the lines of hypothetical and assumption rather than proof.

* Disclaimer..again: I have now been awake 23 hours. The accuracy of anything I said cannot be determined at this time.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)