Internet Service Providers To Start Charging For Bandwith

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

The NY Times gives a good overview - the bigger problem is that the content providers (studios, radio stations and TV networks) are gearing up to start offering their content on the Internet via streaming. Other businesses offering online data backups are reaching into consumer's homes. Bandwidth caps with high service fees will delay if not limit business growth. And think - every Youtube vid you watch will cost you. Might make us more selective eh? No more dancing rodents or Rick Roll vids.

All three companies [including ATT DSL not just cable internet providers] say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.

Millions of people are moving online to watch movies and television shows, play multiplayer video games and talk over videoconference with family and friends. And media companies are trying to get people to spend more time online: the Disneys and NBCs of the world keep adding television shows and movies to their Web sites, giving consumers convenient entertainment that soaks up a lot of bandwidth.

Moreover, companies with physical storefronts, like Blockbuster, are moving toward digital delivery of entertainment. And new distributors of online content — think YouTube — are relying on an open data spigot to make their business plans work.

Critics of the bandwidth limits say that metering and capping network use could hold back the inevitable convergence of television, computers and the Internet......

Even if the caps are far above the average users’ consumption, their mere existence could cause users to reduce their time online. Just ask people who carefully monitor their monthly allotments of cellphone minutes and text messages.

“As soon as you put serious uncertainty as to cost on the table, people’s feeling of freedom to predict cost dries up and so does innovation and trying new applications,” Vint Cerf, the chief Internet evangelist for Google who is often called the “father of the Internet,” said in an e-mail message."

The article goes on to note that the caps being discussed could limit you to 30GB/month - every GB therafter will cost you $1. A streaming TV show will be around 300MB - which if my math is correct works out to around 3hrs TV a day. Or 3 hrs of movies a day. Or 3 hrs of Yotube vidding. Essentially think of 3 hrs for all of your streaming Internet a day.  But before you say: hey, no way am I using that much - remember if you're watching High Def on your new HDTV - you will have less than half of that amount. And don't forget - using Skype or phone services will count against you. And all of your online data backups. Playing games online?

"As the technology company Cisco put it in a recent report, “today’s ‘bandwidth hog’ is tomorrow’s average user.”

edited to add: Comcast is looking at a 250GB/month cap which is a bit more reasonable and works out to 8GB day. But still one hour of HDTV can eat up a large chunk of that amount. The NY Times blog points out :

Some see another motive. Bandwidth use is also on the rise because of legal uses of video, such as streaming shows on networks and movie downloads from Apple’s iTunes Store. As Internet video becomes more popular, it has the potential to threaten the core business of the cable television companies.

Indeed, Time Warner’s proposed caps are just low enough to keep its customers from using their Internet connections as a replacement for cable as their main source of TV shows: the 40-gigabyte limit would allow users less than 2 hours a day of video.

Comcast’s rules, by contrast, would allow 11 hours of video a day — giving its customers plenty of access to the sweet stuff, while still preventing the few from eating the whole cookie jar.

 

Comments

[pwolf.livejournal.com]

thats BS. they should update they technology to deal with the higher bandwidth. they just want to make money off of the new fad :\

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad you said that, I just read this post going, "But -- but what does this change?!"

I stick with the nation's worst ISP, purely because they offer 110Gb a month in off-peak hours.

[bananainpyjamas.livejournal.com]

Aaargh, I thought I escaped bandwidths limits when I escaped my college campus.

[scribal1.livejournal.com]

I work in video, I AM todays bandwidth "hog-lite". I move about 240 gb per month. I sleep little and when my kids go to bed and I work in the studio, I stream music video all night long.

I edit video, file share video, run several art sites that are graphic intense and I keep an online portfolio that has just over 200mb stored on it and holds three times that.

I use windstream (which bought alltel, the telecommunications company that provides my T1 connection) and so far, we don't have any caps on useage that I know of.

This is one more reason NEVER to go to cable. And hopefully it won't get to where it affects me before people start to upgrade to handle lots of users like me.

It's total bullshit that we should have to pay for bandwidth overage on such a paltry GB level.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

if you read the article you'll see that even the larger DSL providers (and the owner of the internet backbone here in the US) such as ATT is considering caps.

so if they do go this route I doubt fleeing from cable will help - it just may help a bit more - the current proposed cable bandwidth caps are low - perhaps DSL providers will be more generous.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Wow, I never realised that you guys had unlimited access. Here in New Zealand all plans have data caps. And the maximum download speed is something pathetic like 4mbps. We get 10GB a month for $45US. You can get bigger plans but they're much more expensive. If we exceed our cap we get knocked down to dial-up speed until our account rolls over to a new month. We have to monitor our downloads really carefully.

The good thing is that they cap the speed back to dial-up manually, so someone has to press a button somewhere. That means they only do it on business days during normal working hours. So if there's something huge we want to download, we do it on the last evening of the billing month, knowing we'll reset to a 10GB allowance at midnight.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

nods. I could deal with them lowering the download speeds. but I suspect they will handle it much like they handle all the other pay as you go plans - keep the numbers hidden from you and then hit you with hundreds of dollars of fees with no ability to cancel or change your service - like the cell phones plans.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

That would be pretty dodgy. At least we have an online meter that we can log into any time which shows us how much we've used of our 10GB. Some of the plans do charge you extra with over-the-cap usage, but we deliberately picked that one because we know how to get more out of it for free.

Of course, if Usenet gets hobbled, I won't need my 10GB any more anyway. :o(

[thedothatgirl.livejournal.com]

We have b/width caps in the UK - Once upon a time you could get ISP who gave you unlimited - and if you still have one of those you're lucky and hang onto them in desparation even if the rest of their service sucks.

[ceridwyn2.livejournal.com]

Here in New Brunswick (Canada) we're limited to cable through Rogers Cable and DSL & Dial-up through Bell Canada (phone company). Back in April, Rogers announced it was going to cap limitations on GB usage. I currently have the Express one that gives me 60GB/mo for $44.95/mo + taxes.

What Kind of Internet User Are You? (http://www.hispeed.rogers.com/bband/content/keepingpace/index.html?cm_mmc=grdrt-_-all-_-en-_-keepingpace).

ROGERS Hi-Speed Internet Comparison (https://www.rogers.com/web/link/hispeedCompareBegin).

[illiriahrising.livejournal.com]

This is just ridiculous! The impact this will have on streaming radio stations, online movie rentals and film/tv network downloads not to mention net users that work in digital mediums (web site design, video editing, etc) will be huge and not in a good way!

I just don't understand the thinking behind this. Do they not realize that by imposing limits like this that it will be stunting the very industry and technologies that are currently paying their salaries? Instead of working to better streamline the technologies that can provide higher bandwidth usage for all users, they decide to just limit everyone because that's easier and cheaper for them.

I really hope that they reconsider this decision.

And another industry that is going to suffer seriously if this happens is the online adult entertainment industry, better known to you and me as porn. I mean, I know it's not politically correct to stand up for porn, but those guys are going to be losing money hand over fist with bandwidth caps. Thier entire industry is based on people sitting at home in front of their computers downloading and downloading and downloading. And for every second of porn that users download they end up with another chunk of change in their bank accounts. Bandwidth caps would stem their cash flow substantially!

[lavenderfrost.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, the market will speak for itself and users will flock to a service that's decided to cash in and not cap their bandwidth.

*REALLY hopes*

[deepgirl187.livejournal.com]

I was mucho pissed when I heard about this. Though I find myself having to get used to bandwidth caps anyway, as I'm away at college right now (5 gigs a week, which means no more watching online videos for me).

Does anyone know if Charter Communications (US cable company) is following suit? And exactly how much bandwidth does listening streaming radio stations eat up? I suppose now would be the best time to learn about this stuff. grumble/

[lavenderfrost.livejournal.com]

How does this translate to downloaders and users of BitTorrent, though? I'm typically downloading eps of at least 3-4 shows and 1-2 movies a week as it stands right now, not to mention music.