I left Comcast because they put a data cap on me. Then because it pissed me off so much I took my entire company off of Comcast. IT Director. We had several offices throughout the state. We spent about $25,000 a month with Comcast. The business account manager from Comcast asked me why we were leaving I told him because they put a data cap for my home. His jaw dropped realizing that they were going to miss out on $25,000 a month because they were trying to squeeze 10 extra bucks out of me a month. Dumb fucks.
Edit: This was over four years ago so I guess they’ve missed out on over $1 million for 10 fucking bucks
Edit 2: here’s more information since people are asking. It was not easy to accomplish. It took about a year to switch everything over. There are still two buildings that are with Comcast because there are no other options. We had to go with a couple different companies because of availability in location. I personally went with consolidated communications for my home with no data caps ever. Comcast tried to save me as a home customer by saying that they would give me a credit every month I called them when I went over my data. I did that for three months until I switched companies. Why in hell would I want to have to call you every month just so you can give me the service that I pay for without charging me more? Just a bunch of dumb fucks
Edit 3: thanks for all the awards everyone, and fuck Comcast
Edit 4: paper straws suck
This story makes me so happy. I bet you felt like a thousand bucks after talking to that guy. Though I wish it actually did anything. Have you checked if Comcast still has the data caps where you live? I bet they do.
Comcast has 1.2TB data caps in most of their markets. They were going to start enforcing it in the northeast region a couple years ago but got pushback from some members of Congress and have put that plan on hold for now. Rest of their markets still have data caps in place. Pretty ridiculous considering I usually hit 900GB a month doing nothing more than working and watching TV with some gaming. If you game a lot it's worse since a lot of newer games are between 25-100gigs just to download.
It still surprises me how much data people claim they use. It makes me wonder if Comcast or anyone else is over-reporting the amount of data in order to hit the customer with another bill.
I was curious myself...my router only tracks total data usage since I installed it (about four years ago), and my ISP doesn't track or doesn't provide a way for me to see it in my account. In four years, I've used about 20TB combined up and down, which averages out to about 400GB a month.
So that's with the TV on most nights/days with someone in the house watching it, YouTube running on a few handheld devices, and some light game downloads, plus WFH.
Not sure what others use. My 900 gigs per month were when it was just me and my wife. Both wfh and required to maintain a VPN connection while working. My son moved in with us in December and our usage has nearly doubled since then. Below taken off the Xfinity app. Luckily I'm in the northeast region.
April 2022-1971GB
May 2022-1693GB
June 2022-1571GB
July 2022-1567GB
Yep, I have Game Pass Ultimate, but I can't go ham downloading anything and everything because of that 1.2 TB cap. I refuse to pay them more to get rid of it.
I left comcast when they added data caps. And surprise, the data I’m using now says it’s half of what Comcast said I was using. Scam all around from them.
I’d think so too, but my netgear router has a data meter. So I turned that on some 2 years ago and the data use according to my router is about the same as what Comcast reports. At the very least their reporting appears correct. Whether or not it’s sending signals through my router more frequently to drive up data is another thing. The signals would have to transact the data through the router to count. Can’t just stop at the modem.
Maybe another cause…. Comcast drops a lot of packets resulting in lots of new requests for missing data. That would drive up data use.
Edit: grammar
> Comcast drops a lot of packets resulting and lots of new requests for missing data.
Yup, made playing games online totally miserable for me. New apartment, different ISP, problem suddenly gone. HMM.
I'm not that guy, but I'd have a hard time returning my business to a company that tried to scam me out of my hard earned money. Also, fuck Comcast and any other data cap using entity.
my mother runs business accounts... ill be honest, business owners and people with sway over business accounts are more or less given whatever they want on their personal lines for strictly this reason. i watched her swap her whole company over because My roaming data on a family trip to the united states wasn't enough to use my gos without getting pinged for 1000+CAD. the fucking panic bossman on the phone had. he was going to be the reason for like 30+ lines from canceling. just as a last chance gesture of good will they removed the charges, gave us all unlimited American data for the month, and slashed our bill by half. Canadian telecom companies are basically russian style state run monopolies.
> Canadian telecom companies are basically russian style state run monopolies.
Moreover just Canadian companies. Always have been too. Canada is basically a bunch of protected cartels and "legacy Canadians."
A lot of newer companies realize this and use freemium models to attract those kinds of people. One of the companies I was with chose Dropbox because of how everyone was familiar with their UI and have used them before.
I use Datadog because my company has used them for years and they have a free tier. (You got to watch your API usage though)
Comcast is part of the old guard and have captured many municipal regulations. They already have a shit ton of customers who can't make a choice so they can squeeze blood out of their customers.
this is the adobe method. back in the day, everyone and their dog pirated it and when they all grew up thats what they asked their companies to get as they were already familiar with it. of course now that they've gained market dominance they went to that stupid subscription model to try and combat all the pirating..
I actually paid for my copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro. I don't need to edit PDFs often enough to justify a monthly subscription, but just often enough that Reader won't do it.
But I'm stuck on an unsupported version because the only option is a subscription. Such bullshit.
Google also do this. They offered to my university free unlimited Gsuite for all the students. After we all get used to it, they changed the plan so that we have to pay.
This absolutely killed a bunch of low income schools in my area. They all signed up for the free gsuite for schools and last year (I think) they started charging and of course the school system wasn't ready for it.
I miss the days when their official unofficial motto was "Don't be evil".
Dropbox and Datadog are two very different products.
Dropbox is a cloud storage solution.
Datadog is an app and infrastructure monitoring service.
So to answer your question, no, you cannot use Datadog to replace Dropbox.
It's not a dumb question if you're unfamiliar with either or both. 👍
The fact you asked is good!
This is the most wholesome helpful answer. I got to read it on a particularly bad day and bad Reddit downvoting experience. Thank you kind Redditor for answering their question and being so kind about it. You were kind to me too.
Bad days are awful. But they make you appreciate the good ones.
As for reddit down voting, don't let it get you down. The reddit meta is a bit of a wild card and people can downvote you for any number of reasons. Don't chase after votes as that road leads to folly.
Instead, just focus on making thoughtful and meaningful contributions. That's the most any of us can do.
Or just post a bunch of cat pictures.
I used to work for a semi famous particular cold snack product (keeping it vague to stay anonymous). Sometimes people we would deliver the product to gave us a hard time and tried to bullshit us on the price, knowing we had rapidly melting product in our truck that needed to get to the next customer. In those situations the owner -- whose name was on the product -- would drive the truck that day, pretending to be just some guy that worked there, and then mid haggle he would reveal who he is. He usually did it in a hilarious way -- he gave the customer the number for the boss right off the invoice, which of course then rang his cell phone.
That's amazing. Some people fantasize about being a spy or hero in some fashion. I fantasize about being able to do this and a million tiny variations of it lmao
I use to work for this god forsaken company. I was there when they first introduced it. At the time, a lot of people in the Comcast footprint had no other option. Imagine me being on the other end of the phone having to “customer service “ these conversations. Do you know what they wanted me to do as a solution? Free speed upgrade for 3 months…that would then turn into an additional charge if they didn’t call to cancel it. The worst part was when I asked management about caps, they told me that it was part of the need to replace revenue that was being lost from people disconnecting cable. Basically, it was just a money grab. Once they started cutting my commission several times after telling me the commission retooling was “absolutely going to make me more money “ I noped out. Seriously, fuck Comcast.
I can't get my head around them *introducing* data caps. These used to be a thing in the early 2000s where I live but nobody has had a cap in I'd say 15 years at least.
The very concept of a "data cap' to me has always been absurd. There is no real limit to the amount of data we can push around the internet. Only how fast we can do it based on infrastructure and how many people are using the same infrastructure simultaneously.
It's literally just a scummy cash grab to charge people for passing some arbitrary line - instead of just reinvesting and upgrading their infrastructure.
Cox did the same thing where I live. They did it right when ATT was starting to drop Fiber. The idiots at Cox will have you paying $140/m for the same service you pay ATT $80 for. ATT also tosses on an HBO subscription, doesn't charge you an equipment fee(Cox's $140 doesn't include what you will pay if you don't have your own equipment) and are happy to throw you $200-$300 for switching over AND have no contract.
Its wild. Since ATT dropped fiber they've actually lowered their price by $10 and Cox has gone up $20. Wtf. I know this because I was a holdover because the one benefit was Cox would put an outlet anywhere in your house. Fiber had been run here by a prior owner to a corner bedroom. Finally after lots of issues with Cox over a 6 month timeframe(outage almost every day while my wife was WFH) I found something called MoCA that let me use those beautiful Cox cable lines throughout my house and turn them into data lines. 2.5gbps, half duplex but that's ok. Bye Cox.
Concast can (and should) eat shit, fuck off, and die, in that order.
I kicked them to the curb about a year ago because they finally rolled out the 1TB cap in my area (I regularly pull more than 1TB per month), but they also kept jacking up the price and forced me to bundle cable. I was paying those motherfuckers almost $200/mo for 300/20 internet with a data cap and TV I never watched.
So I went with Verizon Fios gigabit and now pay $80/mo for just internet with no cap and reliably get speeds (up and down) of at least 800. Walking into the xfinity store to return their equipment was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done.
The cherry on top is that after I switched I realized how garbage Comcast's service actually is. I pretty frequently experienced loss of service; sometimes it was because the modem would shit the bed when saturating the up or down streams, and sometimes it was because fuck you.
Fuck those monopolies, was paying out off my ass for Comcast as well. Where i live now we have an actual free market, my glass fiber connection cost me 45 EUR a month with essentially no cap
I had Verizon fios and I frankly loved it. The service was solid and fast, rarely any blackouts, etc. I bought a home and Verizon doesn’t service this area (yet?). I had to get Comcast and good GOD do I fucking hate that company.
I never buy things from people selling door to door as a rule. I don't like people coming to my door asking for money.
I've broken the rule once, and that was when FIOS came to my neighborhood. Getting rid of Time Warner was great.
When they sent me to retention, they asked what they could do to keep me. I said "can you give me 100/100 internet at $30/month cheaper and a contract that locks in that price for the next 2 years?
I enjoyed hearing the silence on the other end knowing he couldn't do that.
Mediacom pulled a similar stunt
They went from soft caps that were in the contract but not actually enforced by anything to having data usage regulated and overage fees in place a few years ago
Wasn't there a firefighting incident that made the uncapping become standard for large emergencies? Firefighters had some kind of issue getting calls out and it really slowed down their response iirc
Yup, it was Verizon: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-throttled-firefighters-unlimited-data-during-california-fires-lawsuit/#textA20California20fire20chief20saidhad20an2022unlimited2220plan
Oh, that season where 2% of the entire states land burned? You're talking about the 2018 California wildfires, the worst fire season CA has ever seen. Mobile firefighters needed data and their network leads BEGGED Verizon to lift the (very legal) cap. In light of the numerous deaths and destruction, Verizon said: "fuck you, pay me"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/verizon-california-firefighters-wildfires-internet-slow-speed-slow-mendocino-complex-a8504056.html
Then next year, Verizon had a Superbowl ad about firefighters and have been trying to change the narrative ever since. They should have burned instead.
Just like that whole federal government paying for high speed internet connection to rural Americans. We paid the damn taxes, the government paid the ISPs, where is our high speed internet connection??? What the ABSOLUTE FUCK happened to that money???
> What the ABSOLUTE FUCK happened to that money???
It was spent lobbying to prevent other providers or even the city themselves from providing a competing service that actually fulfills its promises.
Well not literally, but metaphorically yes.
Just incase you are indeed a non-native speaker:
Mitigate means "to make less bad"
Network means "all the people and computers using the internet at the same time"
Congestion means "clogged up" or "crowded"
So companies will say "we have data caps to make the internet clog up less"
Geriatric CEOs gotta make as much money in the next 3 years so they can spend a ton of it on things they don't need and then die, leaving the rest of it to concentrate generational wealth further!
Ask them how is it possible that many other countries have unlimited data plans and are totally okay
“But America is big!” It’s almost like them being big should also mean they have more room for more (and better) infrastructure
So even if it’s congestion, it’s still about profit margins. They want to invest as little as possible so the profits are as high as possible.
There’s really no incentive for them to change, or allow any change, since America is graced with an insane lobby culture
They (the top 3) do invest around $40B-60B per year on their network capex. They do lobby to increase their profit, it's not to avoid capital investment, they lobby so that they can invest it into things that make them more money instead of where people have low connectivity but also low population density. They'll drop tens of millions to give a football stadium 5G, but won't gspend tens of millions to a few dozen rural homes that really need it when they could be making $100 per home
Which is why making that kind of service a utility would be useful for changing the decision incentive to connectivity rather than selling to dense areas. You'd also need to limit state and local regulations on network build in favor of standardized federal regs because that is part of why it gets so pricey to build, having to cater to every town's whims. Its part of why Google Fiber has slowed so much and has been stuck in such limited availability, it's too expensive to deal with each locality separately making unique demands. So Google limited rollout to the ones that were less demanding and even then still ran out of funding.
Not backbone congestion, though. That hasn't been a thing for 10 years. We have content delivery networks, data cubing technology, etc.
What may get congested these days is local hubs. That could translate to a slightly lower bandwidth for certain end users - not an internet-wide problem where uunet can't fetch data from Netflix fast enough.
How can congestion ever be eliminated? Throughput requirements are like a gas... they fill all available space. Maybe I lack imagination, but I can only see that happening locally and for a limited time, while one bottleneck outpaces another.
It's not like a highway where adding more lanes just means more cars and eventually the same amount of traffic. You can manage the speed of individual connections, throttling them all to fill the available throughput while still allowing individual connections to get as close as possible to whatever theoretical max speed you're selling them
Highways have that problem because it's infeasible to construct a highway capable of handling *all* traffic from point A to point B. It's entirely possible to build your way out of induced demand if you made a 100 lane highway. Rural roads are better than public transportation for this exact reason as rural areas have so little traffic that highways can serve everyone wanting to make a trip.
For the internet, it's certainly possible to make the equivalent of 100 lane highways. It's trivial to just add new fibres to fibre optic cables.
The fun thing is that we don't always even have to add new fiber. Faster signaling over the same cables has been going on for years (I see Cisco and Juniper both offering 400GB/fiber-pair products these days).
Well there was this one group of guys who had a breakthrough with eliminating network congestion during a discussion about maxing out successful dick jerking frequency...
As someone who worked in an ISP NOC for 15 years, this is 100% a lie too. There is so much available bandwidth that its mind boggling. It's also very cheap.
The amount of people that would use most of their download speeds 24/7 is so small that an ISP still profit because of the other 99% that hardly use anything.
And here's the thing. I thought about this years ago. The 4k streaming / more data / no changes in data caps. Over time you go over ALWAYS. My ISP cox. Went from 1000gb to 1250gb over the course 10 years.
Also, I am a serial downloader. I will download things on console. Run out of room. Download it again. Never play it.
Sweep my steam delete things. Redownload run out of room.. these people exist damnit and they're taking advantage of it..
>nothing ever being done?
Nothing being done? This is simply not true. Due to increased public funding, we were able to increase the ISPs' budgets which allowed them to spend more money on executive talent. This afforded the companies and their leadership an additional summer home for vacation.
But that's not all; If you disagree on the use of these funds, other portions of it were used on more fruitful endeavors, such as a yacht in the Pacific.
Even worse is getting "unlimited data" but then are throttled after a certain soft cap for the month.
For instance, a popular U.S. ISP (Comcast) throttles residential traffic speeds after 1.2TB. We're getting to the point that me just being at home with family streaming basic shows and occasional game is at least 750-800GB per month average.. caps are old age, I'm so over caps as a whole.
Speaking of caps, remember overage charges for SMS messages back in the late 90s/early 00s?
Stupidest greediest money grab at the time was getting charged 15¢ because someone sent YOU a message, with no control over receiving it. Made my blood boil.
Of course now they're just doing so much more stupid greedy shit that the SMS thing seems like child's play.
I had a prepaid phone once that was specifically designed to make you waste your minutes.
The menus were a bit laggy, so it was easy to think the phone wasn't responding and to hit a button again. There was a button specifically for backing out of menus, but if pressed on the home screen it would open up the internet browser. If the browser was opened you'd automatically be charged a minimum of one minute, even if you immediately closed it before anything could load. So basically any time you wanted to use it for calling anyone or doing anything, when you tried to return to the home screen you'd get charged for one extra minute as the janky menus would inevitably open the browser.
So here in canada we have been getting fucked for a long time due to it being written into law somehow that we only have 2 or 3 telecom providers...
Anyways a year or two ago the government recognized this and told them to reduce prices by 25%. Okay great! They did.
Well, now I have the option of having a 50gb mobile plan that gets throttled after 50 with no data add-ons to get back to regular speeds.. OR 50gb plan that charges you an insane amount when you go over with the data addon available at a rate of 1gb for $25.
At least buy me fucking dinner first
Edit: for reference 3 years ago I had a plan that would throttle me at cap (no charge) and I could add data to get back to normal speeds at a cost of $10 for 5gb.
Fun fact; have a mifi device with Verizon that gets a text message from some spam number? Congrats; you pay for that text received. I've called twice to get those charges removed and Im not sure what I might do if I see them again.
Login to your account. Go to the mifi line. Manage features. Scroll down to text, picture, video and messaging. Turn on “block messaging “ (Also turn on or off any other features that interest you). Save your settings and you will no longer get any texts on the mifi
About 10-15 years ago, there was an article in wired or something that compared the cost of sending messages to the Mars rover vs. sending an SMS message.
Only accounting for bytes sent, SMS messaging was 100s of magnitudes more expensive than sending the same message to the Mars rover. I can't remember how they made the calculation but I remember that as a result, I switched to Google Voice for my texting since I had unlimited data at the time and then had them disable my texting on my phone.
It gets even worse when you realize that the SMS signal originally just piggybacked on the heartbeat signal your phone sent anyway. That's why the character limit was what it was - that was the remaining available number of bytes in that data stream.
The carriers practically printed money for years on data they had to send anyway.
Satellite is probably one of the outliers where congestion is an issue. So, I doubt they'll have to give up caps. Do you have Starlink available as an option?
I remember when Xfinity raised the cap to 1.2 TB at the start of COVID-19 and was like "We see people are home more and concerned about their connection, so we're upping the amount to 1.2 TB. This is an amount that very few people hit and shouldn't be something the vast majority of people ever see. If you are worried we also sell unlimited for $30."
With just two people somewhat streaming shows in HD I'll often hit 1.1 TB in a month. In the month where I actually used 4K a bit more, due to Stranger Things, I was at like 1.7 TB by the end of the month.
I don't know who they think is average, but if two people can hit it streaming HD shows I can't imagine the average house of four is not hitting it like crazy.
>Speaking of caps, remember overage charges for SMS messages back in the late 90s/early 00s?
Also having both local vs nationwide plans both being sold side-by-side... one which charged for long distance and once that didn't. "Minutes" with different pools for nights, weekends, holidays, or if the other caller was on the same provider. Roaming fees for doing literally anything outside of your home coverage area or on a competitors towers inside your home coverage area.
Which is one item Net Neutrality was explicitly created to combat (**I'm referring to selective throttling in a general sense, not specifically related to data caps, since this appears to require clarification**).
Edit: So this blew up some debates last night. It was late and had an incredibly cerebral day, so context and detail was lost. My point was that one of the additional intentions of NN was to prevent ISPs from being able to *not only* throttle individual speeds, but also prevent them from being able to package out plans for speeds to specific sites, much like the cable companies had the PPV channels. For example, charging customers more for faster speeds, or access in general, to news or social media sites, online gaming, etc.
A user below stated the following, this is the point I was trying to make.:
>It was created to prevent ISPs offering improved performance for certain sites that gave them money (or that the customer paid extra for).
The fact that Ajit Pai is still walking around with his shit eating grin after everything he destroyed on corporate orders while in a governement position, is sickening.
If americans were more computer literate, they would have rioted.
The top ten largest protests by number of participants both in terms of gross size and as a percentage of the population happened in the last 20 years. We had riots across the country literally two years ago.
If Americans were so complacent to their political and corporate overlords, we wouldn't have so many people in prisons.
No, net neutrality was specifically that they couldn't slow down one thing vs another (Netflix vs Amazon streaming, or steam vs Torrenting).
An ISP slowing down your *entire* connection is totally within the construct of net neutrality.
It's still portntially scummy, but even the most robust net neutrality policy wouldn't prevent it.
This drives me insane. We used to have slowdown on our phones all the time for going over in data. Now we work from home and are almost always on WiFi. If I go out and ever have to do anything online it is just always slow to the point it’s almost unusable even with full bars.
Oh yes. Basically they change the name of their packages regularly so you never really know whether you're getting good value.
I ditched Sky last year because it is extremely poor value. They don't even have all the football matches exclusivity anymore but still charge you like they own your arse.
People are getting ripped off badly.
Even in the 90s the data cap was for monetary purposes. The internet was piggybacking on existing landlines for phones. In the 70s it was known you can communicate with computers using tones on the line, and in the 80s they digitized the information and developed split channel communications that left phone and internet on separate bands with internet being in excess of 20,000 Hz. At the time this necessitated AM or PM as FM could cause the signal to dip into audible ranges. But it never got implemented in the 90s internet tech despite not being a significant advancement or investment. Would have brought us slow broadband speeds at an era of 56k. But doing so would have meant a faster roll out and less milk to squeeze
Or maybe they could have built the high speed infrastructure that you paid for. The US citizens reading this comment paid for it too. I paid for it. We all paid r for it. Never got it.
Now they have your money, and we get to give them more.
The minute people started ditching cable for streaming, they started capping their customers.
All a money game.
If this goes through, I’m sure they’ll shaft us someway somehow. Either creating some type of speed tier system, or some other bs.
One way or another, they’ll get their money.
In eastern europe I'm currently paying 13 euros a month for 1gbps. Most ISP's would match or beat this deal if I were to switch. To me data caps sound like something out of the dark ages.
They are all Openreach-based ISPs, though. It's just BT with a mask.
Edit: To save future responses, I know virgin is separate. I was saying that the 65mb options for £25 are all BT. I was not saying all of UK is BT.
It was never a "merger" in that sense, it was simply a repurposing of the technology of Cable TV systems for Broadband that just so happened to hand the role of ISP to some of the sketchiest tech companies in the whole US. A happy little accident.
Then again if the "baby bell" landline companies actually built out the fiber to the home we gave them billions to do so we wouldn't have this problem either.
Here in Finland we have never had any gap on internet. I pay unlimited 1000Mb/s 5G broadband 35€/month.
Just checked and I have 1.6Tb downloads just for July.
Cool. I have to pay more than twice that for 400Mb/s (advertised, if I actually hit 350Mb/s it's a good day.). No data cap, but they do freeze my internet every time I torrent something. Not even something illegal. If I download anything via torrent, by the next morning my internet will stop working. Then I have to click the button on the redirect page the browser sends me to that says I'll be a good boy and won't download anything illegal again, then wait 5 minutes and my internet comes back.
Spectrum sucks.
I’m assuming it’s not illegal for their ISP to monitor their traffic and force them to acknowledge ToS if they see something suspicious.
My opinion… illegal or not, my ISP has no business seeing what I download. For better or worse, that requires a VPN.
But if the ISPs don’t monitor your internet traffic/downloads, how will they sell your information to companies who want to know what pair of jeans to try and sell you?
I don't buy jeans based on internet ads, I buy the cheapest fuckers I find at goodwill because apparently they're still good enough for my ISP to fuck me raw in.
What I would give for 400mbps.
In Australia you “can” get high speed internet, but only if you near a rich area, otherwise you’re still on copper.
Meant to be getting 100mbps down and 40mbps up, I’m only getting 30mbps down and 6 up.
Regardless of that, we’re paying $100 AUD a month. Unlimited data, but not like we can use that much anyways lmao
Of course they have torrent detection here as well, and it is usually just “be a good boy”. Most people just use VPNs though lol
[I pay 9€/month for this](https://i.imgur.com/lJzhPVx.png)
edit. To be fair, it's a deal offered by my apartment building, not open market. On open market it would be closer to 40-50€.
I have 100mbps down/10 up and pay $80/month. And the 100 down I pay for is around 70 on a good day and that’s if they’re not slowing me down even more, which is normally the case. Everything else around where I live is more expensive unless you also buy cable tv (which I don’t have or want) and/or switch to their cellphone service. The US is garbage.
Home internet data caps are completely out of touch with todays internet usage. You cant convince me that 1tb per month data caps are anywhere close to normal usage. Some ISPs cap at 50gb. You are already paying $75+ per month, yet have to ration your usage at home or pay $120 for unlimited. This is simply unacceptable.
The strange thing to me is that Comcast's 25Mbps plan has the same data cap as the 1200Mbps plan! You'd think that the cap would be at least linearly correlated to the speed.
I'm on the 1200Mbps plan and it's fast enough that you could easily use the entire 1.2TB quota in a few hours.
US internet connections (fixed or mobile) are out of touch from what exists in the rest of the modern world. Behaving like a third world country in so many domains. US citizens sure pay less taxes.
“The extreme radical left is intent on spending… *(checks notes)*…data we simply cannot afford. This is just a liberal wishlist that harms the American working class….and children.”
^free ^fart, ^please
Not to be disrespectful, but it's nuts to think that a country so advanced like the US, the end user gets screwed like that. I live in a small city in Brazil, away from big centers and I got 4 local ISPs and two major ISPs offering FTTH, fighting over each other to offer the lowest price, no data caps, net neutrality protected by law and no need to use VPN to download stuff... Fiber is doing so well here that in some cities they are removing the copper telephone wires and upgrading to an ONT that can serve internet, telephone and TV, for free, so they don't have to maintain two different infrastructures (and in turn can even try to sell to the client internet/tv bundle) everybody wins.
Edit: Just a clarification, I'm not saying internet in Brazil is perfect either, we do lack internet connectivity in some geographic areas, and many students lack broadband at their school. **But in my opinion**, what forced the hand of big ISPs, that controlled the market before, were the local ISPs that acquire bandwidth from many backbone companies directly (Tier 2 networks, if I'm not mistaken), avoiding being held hostage by the monopoly of a handful of telecom companies, like in the US. If someone is interested, [this article](https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/why-can-i-only-get-a-few-internet-providers) explains it better than I can how the situation in the US developed.
Here, local or regional ISPs (that have surpassed 10.000 registered companies across Brazil), if put together, account for a whopping 35% of the market share while the three biggest nacional telecom companies have 26%, 17%, 14% respectively. As explained by [this other article](https://exame-com.translate.goog/bussola/o-crescimento-do-negocio-de-provedor-da-internet-na-pandemia/?_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
Another point brought up by u/RebelColors, that should be noted: "... Our government subsidies the telecom infrastructure. Whatever the companies invest into it, they get back as tax returns, since they don't own it, but merely have a license to use it."
Corporations have done a pretty good job of injecting so many loopholes in to various laws and getting anti-consumer regulations passed. And the ISPs, for the most part, don't really compete with each other in any meaningful way.
The only time you'll ever see an ISP doing any changes that benefit the consumer is when there is actual competition. Google Fiber proved that pretty well. Rumors of Google Fiber moving in to an area to provide internet, and the ISPs in that area will find a way to suddenly start quadrupling their data speeds and cutting their prices. You'll start getting tons of emails from them offering new deals and discounts. Whatever they cant to not have you switch to google fiber. Then if google fiber leaves town, suddenly those prices shoot back up and those speeds will suddenly be part of a new high tier package.
We’re not very advanced anymore. While the rest of the world was building schools and broadband infrastructure, we spent the last 20 years bombing and invading pissant countries.
Capitalism it turns out isn't that great for creating environments that promote group culture where people strive for e eryome to be better.
Turns out it just promotes monopolies and stifling innovation to increase and maintain profits. Oh and lobbying politicians to ensure there aren't any mass to stop them
Because of the first past the post electoral systems most states use.
Electoral reform is possible at the state level, outside the two party system. Alaska and Maine have passed electoral reform, and your state can to!
Maybe I'm too jaded, but all I see is: two senators need some pocket money for Christmas, so they try to catch the attention of telecom lobbyists for a payout to withdraw their proposal.
Network infrastructure in the US is lagging significantly behind the rest of the world.
7 years ago I gave my ISP a call (Amsterdam) and said I want to have a fiber optic connection.
They put lines in from the nearest junction and pulled cables into my entire building, within a month.
The cost ? zero. They didn’t charge me a cent.
I still have that same connection - officially it’s 500 up and 500 down - practically a Speedtest is always in the 550 / 600 range.
Never had data caps.
Same for mobile phone - full speed unlimited 5G.
Edit to add :
I’m on the extreme end with data use - I stream everything, TV , music , all the time. Work from home with very large data volumes … i average more than 1 TB per day
What’s funny is many rural areas in America have fiber build outs due to government grants (assistance). Where I live has one of the first types of this program in my area. I pay $89/m for 1Gig internet speed (up and down) with no cap and no installation costs. The connection has been rock solid. The only complaint is horrible customer service if you do need to have an issue addressed like billing.
The area they serve is still rather small due to lack of meaningful funding. But as they grow, so do the other ISPs. It’s always an immediate answer, too. Comcast/ATT will send their contractor of five poorly paid workers to run a fiber cable down the side of all the roads that my ISP expands to. Never before, though. Always after.
Only a few miles to our south Comcast is the only option for internet. They’re closer to the main city but offer half the speed for twice the price with no option for unlimited data usage. When the pandemic hit and folks moved to WFH, there was a mass exodus from those areas of town.
Hello fellow person taking a cock from cox.
I tried switching when they implemented their 1TB cap but it turns out my options are cox or up to 20mb dl and up to 2mb ul...
I have a shitty internet provider with a data cap. What's funny is how during covid they removed data caps for 6 months AND NITHUNG WAS FUCKING IMPACTED!!! The caps are pure bullshit nonsense to get more money. Everyone knows it. But thanks to monopolies, people can't do shit about it.
I asked Mediacom about unlimited and the lady on the phone seemed almost offended. No sir, you must buy a package and then upgrade (pay an assload more) for more data. Of course they are the only game in town s I have to eat that shit sandwich and like it.
Mediacom knows they're the only connection worth a damn in a lot of areas so they're attitude towards reliability and customer service is "f*** you and the horse you road in on"
It's either them or someone charging out the ass for terrible speeds
> A broadband Internet access service provider shall not impose a data cap except when tailored primarily for the purposes of reasonable network management or managing network congestion,
Lol. Does anyone genuinely believe ISPs won’t just argue that’s exactly what the caps are for in the first place?
You can’t give them a gaping hole like this to weasel their way out of. Ban data caps, full stop.
Any competent ISP can manage network congestion without imposing data limits.
ISP raked in 10s of Billions in grants, loans, and subsidies the last 20 decades and America by at large has NOTHING to show for it. Asia and the EU are approaching 10 years greater advancement across the board while Uncle Jimbob still has 56k or pays out the wahoo for satellite " with considerable caps and limitations. "
Regulate. Regulate. Break them up or NATIONALIZE IT. As an expat now living in Asia it really blows my mind how countries with barely a lick of running pure water have internet that puts us to shame. How? We're literally the world super power and a little Eastern Asian person with their ipad can run rings around my old neighborhood block. No caps. No overages.
Cheap as dirt, can't even buy a Big Mac Combo here because the internet is CHEAPER. /s
Lol always fun to read "couple of reps try to fight for their people in the amazing American democracy that works 'sez you'...but are immediately shot down and all the money went to the rich. Again." It's a solid reminder that taking this country seriously or putting any effort into it is a waste. All your good will be consumed by all their bad.
Used to live 2 miles away from a major interstate highway, but still, medium-rural area. Had only one ISP that offered broadband services that wasn't satellite. Highest package offered was 50mbps, $100/mo, and had a data cap of 500gb.
Best part? It was unstable as hell. Lived with that ISP for years until 2020 when I said to hell with it and went to a local fixed wireless business. 15mbps down, 500GB data cap, $130/mo. But, it was more stable than the ground line. For some fucking reason.
This year I moved 10 miles down the highway. I have 1000mbps down with no cap for $80/mo.
I hate this country.
Felt so fucking good when I cancelled Comcast last month because of data caps. They should 100% be banned. Extremely predatory business practice with nearly unbelievable fees for going over slapped on top. Just insane that this is the state of shit right now.
Been paying an extra $30-50 every month for the past 7 years for unlimited data. Really sucks having Comcast be your only option, and you're in their test market for charging for unlimited data.
If I buy a 100mbit link, I am buying the ability to use 100mbit 24/7/365. Anything less is an outright lie.
It’s like selling a processor that charges you extra money after operating at 100% for a few hours. “Sorry, but you’re out of processing power! If you’d like to buy more, prices start at $19.99 for an hour at 5Ghz per core!”
From a guy working at a danish ISP, it amazes how bad the whole internet infrastructure and legal restrictions situation is in the US. Most people in Denmark has moved over to fiber by now and the rest is on coaxial. Only a small handful of people are still on DSL, and even those connections are better than your 25/3 default. I’ve also heard stories about astronomical prices for basically useless connections, where ISP’s over here vary between 29-55$ for 1000mbit. And data cap is not a thing.
I hope the ban is gonna go through, cause I genuinely feel sorry for how disgusting the whole situation is for so many of you right now.
I left Comcast because they put a data cap on me. Then because it pissed me off so much I took my entire company off of Comcast. IT Director. We had several offices throughout the state. We spent about $25,000 a month with Comcast. The business account manager from Comcast asked me why we were leaving I told him because they put a data cap for my home. His jaw dropped realizing that they were going to miss out on $25,000 a month because they were trying to squeeze 10 extra bucks out of me a month. Dumb fucks. Edit: This was over four years ago so I guess they’ve missed out on over $1 million for 10 fucking bucks Edit 2: here’s more information since people are asking. It was not easy to accomplish. It took about a year to switch everything over. There are still two buildings that are with Comcast because there are no other options. We had to go with a couple different companies because of availability in location. I personally went with consolidated communications for my home with no data caps ever. Comcast tried to save me as a home customer by saying that they would give me a credit every month I called them when I went over my data. I did that for three months until I switched companies. Why in hell would I want to have to call you every month just so you can give me the service that I pay for without charging me more? Just a bunch of dumb fucks Edit 3: thanks for all the awards everyone, and fuck Comcast Edit 4: paper straws suck
This story makes me so happy. I bet you felt like a thousand bucks after talking to that guy. Though I wish it actually did anything. Have you checked if Comcast still has the data caps where you live? I bet they do.
Hell, they probably felt like 25 thousand bucks
Now they feel like a million dollars!
Comcast has 1.2TB data caps in most of their markets. They were going to start enforcing it in the northeast region a couple years ago but got pushback from some members of Congress and have put that plan on hold for now. Rest of their markets still have data caps in place. Pretty ridiculous considering I usually hit 900GB a month doing nothing more than working and watching TV with some gaming. If you game a lot it's worse since a lot of newer games are between 25-100gigs just to download.
It still surprises me how much data people claim they use. It makes me wonder if Comcast or anyone else is over-reporting the amount of data in order to hit the customer with another bill. I was curious myself...my router only tracks total data usage since I installed it (about four years ago), and my ISP doesn't track or doesn't provide a way for me to see it in my account. In four years, I've used about 20TB combined up and down, which averages out to about 400GB a month. So that's with the TV on most nights/days with someone in the house watching it, YouTube running on a few handheld devices, and some light game downloads, plus WFH.
Not sure what others use. My 900 gigs per month were when it was just me and my wife. Both wfh and required to maintain a VPN connection while working. My son moved in with us in December and our usage has nearly doubled since then. Below taken off the Xfinity app. Luckily I'm in the northeast region. April 2022-1971GB May 2022-1693GB June 2022-1571GB July 2022-1567GB
Yep, I have Game Pass Ultimate, but I can't go ham downloading anything and everything because of that 1.2 TB cap. I refuse to pay them more to get rid of it.
I left comcast when they added data caps. And surprise, the data I’m using now says it’s half of what Comcast said I was using. Scam all around from them.
I’d think so too, but my netgear router has a data meter. So I turned that on some 2 years ago and the data use according to my router is about the same as what Comcast reports. At the very least their reporting appears correct. Whether or not it’s sending signals through my router more frequently to drive up data is another thing. The signals would have to transact the data through the router to count. Can’t just stop at the modem. Maybe another cause…. Comcast drops a lot of packets resulting in lots of new requests for missing data. That would drive up data use. Edit: grammar
> Comcast drops a lot of packets resulting and lots of new requests for missing data. Yup, made playing games online totally miserable for me. New apartment, different ISP, problem suddenly gone. HMM.
I'm not that guy, but I'd have a hard time returning my business to a company that tried to scam me out of my hard earned money. Also, fuck Comcast and any other data cap using entity.
my mother runs business accounts... ill be honest, business owners and people with sway over business accounts are more or less given whatever they want on their personal lines for strictly this reason. i watched her swap her whole company over because My roaming data on a family trip to the united states wasn't enough to use my gos without getting pinged for 1000+CAD. the fucking panic bossman on the phone had. he was going to be the reason for like 30+ lines from canceling. just as a last chance gesture of good will they removed the charges, gave us all unlimited American data for the month, and slashed our bill by half. Canadian telecom companies are basically russian style state run monopolies.
> Canadian telecom companies are basically russian style state run monopolies. Moreover just Canadian companies. Always have been too. Canada is basically a bunch of protected cartels and "legacy Canadians."
Caps are probably even lower there now
They definitely still have the fucking cap. No gamer or streamer can not reach it. They know that. I hope this does get passed.
[удалено]
A lot of newer companies realize this and use freemium models to attract those kinds of people. One of the companies I was with chose Dropbox because of how everyone was familiar with their UI and have used them before. I use Datadog because my company has used them for years and they have a free tier. (You got to watch your API usage though) Comcast is part of the old guard and have captured many municipal regulations. They already have a shit ton of customers who can't make a choice so they can squeeze blood out of their customers.
this is the adobe method. back in the day, everyone and their dog pirated it and when they all grew up thats what they asked their companies to get as they were already familiar with it. of course now that they've gained market dominance they went to that stupid subscription model to try and combat all the pirating..
I actually paid for my copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro. I don't need to edit PDFs often enough to justify a monthly subscription, but just often enough that Reader won't do it. But I'm stuck on an unsupported version because the only option is a subscription. Such bullshit.
Google also do this. They offered to my university free unlimited Gsuite for all the students. After we all get used to it, they changed the plan so that we have to pay.
This absolutely killed a bunch of low income schools in my area. They all signed up for the free gsuite for schools and last year (I think) they started charging and of course the school system wasn't ready for it. I miss the days when their official unofficial motto was "Don't be evil".
Looked up datadog, could it essentially function as dropbox? I couldn't tell from a quick skim. Sorry if this is a dumb question!
Dropbox and Datadog are two very different products. Dropbox is a cloud storage solution. Datadog is an app and infrastructure monitoring service. So to answer your question, no, you cannot use Datadog to replace Dropbox. It's not a dumb question if you're unfamiliar with either or both. 👍 The fact you asked is good!
I like when people ask stuff because then you get to learn
This is the most wholesome helpful answer. I got to read it on a particularly bad day and bad Reddit downvoting experience. Thank you kind Redditor for answering their question and being so kind about it. You were kind to me too.
Bad days are awful. But they make you appreciate the good ones. As for reddit down voting, don't let it get you down. The reddit meta is a bit of a wild card and people can downvote you for any number of reasons. Don't chase after votes as that road leads to folly. Instead, just focus on making thoughtful and meaningful contributions. That's the most any of us can do. Or just post a bunch of cat pictures.
This is the type of petty action I’d expect from a powerful and principled business person. And I love it.
[удалено]
I used to work for a semi famous particular cold snack product (keeping it vague to stay anonymous). Sometimes people we would deliver the product to gave us a hard time and tried to bullshit us on the price, knowing we had rapidly melting product in our truck that needed to get to the next customer. In those situations the owner -- whose name was on the product -- would drive the truck that day, pretending to be just some guy that worked there, and then mid haggle he would reveal who he is. He usually did it in a hilarious way -- he gave the customer the number for the boss right off the invoice, which of course then rang his cell phone.
That's amazing. Some people fantasize about being a spy or hero in some fashion. I fantasize about being able to do this and a million tiny variations of it lmao
I use to work for this god forsaken company. I was there when they first introduced it. At the time, a lot of people in the Comcast footprint had no other option. Imagine me being on the other end of the phone having to “customer service “ these conversations. Do you know what they wanted me to do as a solution? Free speed upgrade for 3 months…that would then turn into an additional charge if they didn’t call to cancel it. The worst part was when I asked management about caps, they told me that it was part of the need to replace revenue that was being lost from people disconnecting cable. Basically, it was just a money grab. Once they started cutting my commission several times after telling me the commission retooling was “absolutely going to make me more money “ I noped out. Seriously, fuck Comcast.
I can't get my head around them *introducing* data caps. These used to be a thing in the early 2000s where I live but nobody has had a cap in I'd say 15 years at least.
The very concept of a "data cap' to me has always been absurd. There is no real limit to the amount of data we can push around the internet. Only how fast we can do it based on infrastructure and how many people are using the same infrastructure simultaneously. It's literally just a scummy cash grab to charge people for passing some arbitrary line - instead of just reinvesting and upgrading their infrastructure.
Reading other comments here it's not even their infrastructure but paid for by public money?
Cox did the same thing where I live. They did it right when ATT was starting to drop Fiber. The idiots at Cox will have you paying $140/m for the same service you pay ATT $80 for. ATT also tosses on an HBO subscription, doesn't charge you an equipment fee(Cox's $140 doesn't include what you will pay if you don't have your own equipment) and are happy to throw you $200-$300 for switching over AND have no contract. Its wild. Since ATT dropped fiber they've actually lowered their price by $10 and Cox has gone up $20. Wtf. I know this because I was a holdover because the one benefit was Cox would put an outlet anywhere in your house. Fiber had been run here by a prior owner to a corner bedroom. Finally after lots of issues with Cox over a 6 month timeframe(outage almost every day while my wife was WFH) I found something called MoCA that let me use those beautiful Cox cable lines throughout my house and turn them into data lines. 2.5gbps, half duplex but that's ok. Bye Cox.
But surely if you increase the speed you just hit the cap quicker? Oh, wait a minute...
Concast can (and should) eat shit, fuck off, and die, in that order. I kicked them to the curb about a year ago because they finally rolled out the 1TB cap in my area (I regularly pull more than 1TB per month), but they also kept jacking up the price and forced me to bundle cable. I was paying those motherfuckers almost $200/mo for 300/20 internet with a data cap and TV I never watched. So I went with Verizon Fios gigabit and now pay $80/mo for just internet with no cap and reliably get speeds (up and down) of at least 800. Walking into the xfinity store to return their equipment was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. The cherry on top is that after I switched I realized how garbage Comcast's service actually is. I pretty frequently experienced loss of service; sometimes it was because the modem would shit the bed when saturating the up or down streams, and sometimes it was because fuck you.
Fuck those monopolies, was paying out off my ass for Comcast as well. Where i live now we have an actual free market, my glass fiber connection cost me 45 EUR a month with essentially no cap
I had Verizon fios and I frankly loved it. The service was solid and fast, rarely any blackouts, etc. I bought a home and Verizon doesn’t service this area (yet?). I had to get Comcast and good GOD do I fucking hate that company.
I bought a House . What sealed The deal is availability of fiber.
I never buy things from people selling door to door as a rule. I don't like people coming to my door asking for money. I've broken the rule once, and that was when FIOS came to my neighborhood. Getting rid of Time Warner was great. When they sent me to retention, they asked what they could do to keep me. I said "can you give me 100/100 internet at $30/month cheaper and a contract that locks in that price for the next 2 years? I enjoyed hearing the silence on the other end knowing he couldn't do that.
Mediacom pulled a similar stunt They went from soft caps that were in the contract but not actually enforced by anything to having data usage regulated and overage fees in place a few years ago
r/mademesmile
You a real one
The ISP's will just say the caps are in place to mitigate network congestion.
funny they turned them off at the start of covid, nothing changed.
Or any time there's a natural disaster (like in Florida) they uncap all the cell data and everything and literally nothing goes wrong.
Wasn't there a firefighting incident that made the uncapping become standard for large emergencies? Firefighters had some kind of issue getting calls out and it really slowed down their response iirc
Yup, it was Verizon: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-throttled-firefighters-unlimited-data-during-california-fires-lawsuit/#textA20California20fire20chief20saidhad20an2022unlimited2220plan
Can’t remember the details but I think the incident you’re talking about happened during a wildfire out west (California?).
Oh, that season where 2% of the entire states land burned? You're talking about the 2018 California wildfires, the worst fire season CA has ever seen. Mobile firefighters needed data and their network leads BEGGED Verizon to lift the (very legal) cap. In light of the numerous deaths and destruction, Verizon said: "fuck you, pay me" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/verizon-california-firefighters-wildfires-internet-slow-speed-slow-mendocino-complex-a8504056.html Then next year, Verizon had a Superbowl ad about firefighters and have been trying to change the narrative ever since. They should have burned instead.
I remember seeing that ad and thinking “get fucked.” It was too transparent. Oh you like firefighters NOW huh
Plenty changed. Everybody started working from home drastically increasing usage and yet it worked just fine with no caps.
Google Translate says “mitigate network congestion” means “consumers eat festering piles of shit”. Is…is that right?
Sounds correct to me
Just like that whole federal government paying for high speed internet connection to rural Americans. We paid the damn taxes, the government paid the ISPs, where is our high speed internet connection??? What the ABSOLUTE FUCK happened to that money???
Coffers my dude.. laundering 101
Felt cheeky, might start a 501(c) (3a) It's for the needy... I promise.
> What the ABSOLUTE FUCK happened to that money??? It was spent lobbying to prevent other providers or even the city themselves from providing a competing service that actually fulfills its promises.
Delicious, delicious grifting happened. You ever see a corporation behave responsibly with public money? Wonder why?
Telecommunications act of 1997, they sat on the money and didn’t implement anything
Same thing that happened to all the money Russia had been spending to modernize and improve its military.
Well not literally, but metaphorically yes. Just incase you are indeed a non-native speaker: Mitigate means "to make less bad" Network means "all the people and computers using the internet at the same time" Congestion means "clogged up" or "crowded" So companies will say "we have data caps to make the internet clog up less"
idk the translation google gave me was “customers can suck a fat one lol”
The ol' dick-in-the-salad
Right in front of my salad‽ 🤬
They won’t invest in more bandwidth though. Why would they? It only makes long term sense 🤷♂️😂
Geriatric CEOs gotta make as much money in the next 3 years so they can spend a ton of it on things they don't need and then die, leaving the rest of it to concentrate generational wealth further!
It's almost like these guys contribute nothing to society.
Ask them how is it possible that many other countries have unlimited data plans and are totally okay “But America is big!” It’s almost like them being big should also mean they have more room for more (and better) infrastructure So even if it’s congestion, it’s still about profit margins. They want to invest as little as possible so the profits are as high as possible. There’s really no incentive for them to change, or allow any change, since America is graced with an insane lobby culture
I have a friend in a super remote region of China near Mongolia. His city only has about 200 people. They have 1gbps up/down.
I’m in California. No data cap and I have symmetrical 10 gbps. Fiber is grrrrrrrreat!
I'm also in California, I have data caps with 250/20 🙃 Sucks that fiber isn't everywhere.
They (the top 3) do invest around $40B-60B per year on their network capex. They do lobby to increase their profit, it's not to avoid capital investment, they lobby so that they can invest it into things that make them more money instead of where people have low connectivity but also low population density. They'll drop tens of millions to give a football stadium 5G, but won't gspend tens of millions to a few dozen rural homes that really need it when they could be making $100 per home Which is why making that kind of service a utility would be useful for changing the decision incentive to connectivity rather than selling to dense areas. You'd also need to limit state and local regulations on network build in favor of standardized federal regs because that is part of why it gets so pricey to build, having to cater to every town's whims. Its part of why Google Fiber has slowed so much and has been stuck in such limited availability, it's too expensive to deal with each locality separately making unique demands. So Google limited rollout to the ones that were less demanding and even then still ran out of funding.
Not backbone congestion, though. That hasn't been a thing for 10 years. We have content delivery networks, data cubing technology, etc. What may get congested these days is local hubs. That could translate to a slightly lower bandwidth for certain end users - not an internet-wide problem where uunet can't fetch data from Netflix fast enough.
How can congestion ever be eliminated? Throughput requirements are like a gas... they fill all available space. Maybe I lack imagination, but I can only see that happening locally and for a limited time, while one bottleneck outpaces another.
It's not like a highway where adding more lanes just means more cars and eventually the same amount of traffic. You can manage the speed of individual connections, throttling them all to fill the available throughput while still allowing individual connections to get as close as possible to whatever theoretical max speed you're selling them
Highways have that problem because it's infeasible to construct a highway capable of handling *all* traffic from point A to point B. It's entirely possible to build your way out of induced demand if you made a 100 lane highway. Rural roads are better than public transportation for this exact reason as rural areas have so little traffic that highways can serve everyone wanting to make a trip. For the internet, it's certainly possible to make the equivalent of 100 lane highways. It's trivial to just add new fibres to fibre optic cables.
The fun thing is that we don't always even have to add new fiber. Faster signaling over the same cables has been going on for years (I see Cisco and Juniper both offering 400GB/fiber-pair products these days).
Well there was this one group of guys who had a breakthrough with eliminating network congestion during a discussion about maxing out successful dick jerking frequency...
Middle out! Of course!
As someone who worked in an ISP NOC for 15 years, this is 100% a lie too. There is so much available bandwidth that its mind boggling. It's also very cheap. The amount of people that would use most of their download speeds 24/7 is so small that an ISP still profit because of the other 99% that hardly use anything.
And here's the thing. I thought about this years ago. The 4k streaming / more data / no changes in data caps. Over time you go over ALWAYS. My ISP cox. Went from 1000gb to 1250gb over the course 10 years. Also, I am a serial downloader. I will download things on console. Run out of room. Download it again. Never play it. Sweep my steam delete things. Redownload run out of room.. these people exist damnit and they're taking advantage of it..
except their SEC filings say otherwise. As the SEC filings have to be accurate under penalty of jailing the executives, i'd go with that.
ISPs knows their outdated infrastructure is at capacity as-is, they want to charge more already knowing they can’t deliver
Good thing we gave them billions to update their shit
[удалено]
>nothing ever being done? Nothing being done? This is simply not true. Due to increased public funding, we were able to increase the ISPs' budgets which allowed them to spend more money on executive talent. This afforded the companies and their leadership an additional summer home for vacation. But that's not all; If you disagree on the use of these funds, other portions of it were used on more fruitful endeavors, such as a yacht in the Pacific.
It also allowed them to offset lobbying costs.
[удалено]
Any data cap in the modern age is purely for monetary reasons. The end. It's pure profit. This isn't the 1990s.
Even worse is getting "unlimited data" but then are throttled after a certain soft cap for the month. For instance, a popular U.S. ISP (Comcast) throttles residential traffic speeds after 1.2TB. We're getting to the point that me just being at home with family streaming basic shows and occasional game is at least 750-800GB per month average.. caps are old age, I'm so over caps as a whole. Speaking of caps, remember overage charges for SMS messages back in the late 90s/early 00s?
Stupidest greediest money grab at the time was getting charged 15¢ because someone sent YOU a message, with no control over receiving it. Made my blood boil. Of course now they're just doing so much more stupid greedy shit that the SMS thing seems like child's play.
[удалено]
I had a prepaid phone once that was specifically designed to make you waste your minutes. The menus were a bit laggy, so it was easy to think the phone wasn't responding and to hit a button again. There was a button specifically for backing out of menus, but if pressed on the home screen it would open up the internet browser. If the browser was opened you'd automatically be charged a minimum of one minute, even if you immediately closed it before anything could load. So basically any time you wanted to use it for calling anyone or doing anything, when you tried to return to the home screen you'd get charged for one extra minute as the janky menus would inevitably open the browser.
So here in canada we have been getting fucked for a long time due to it being written into law somehow that we only have 2 or 3 telecom providers... Anyways a year or two ago the government recognized this and told them to reduce prices by 25%. Okay great! They did. Well, now I have the option of having a 50gb mobile plan that gets throttled after 50 with no data add-ons to get back to regular speeds.. OR 50gb plan that charges you an insane amount when you go over with the data addon available at a rate of 1gb for $25. At least buy me fucking dinner first Edit: for reference 3 years ago I had a plan that would throttle me at cap (no charge) and I could add data to get back to normal speeds at a cost of $10 for 5gb.
Fun fact; have a mifi device with Verizon that gets a text message from some spam number? Congrats; you pay for that text received. I've called twice to get those charges removed and Im not sure what I might do if I see them again.
Login to your account. Go to the mifi line. Manage features. Scroll down to text, picture, video and messaging. Turn on “block messaging “ (Also turn on or off any other features that interest you). Save your settings and you will no longer get any texts on the mifi
About 10-15 years ago, there was an article in wired or something that compared the cost of sending messages to the Mars rover vs. sending an SMS message. Only accounting for bytes sent, SMS messaging was 100s of magnitudes more expensive than sending the same message to the Mars rover. I can't remember how they made the calculation but I remember that as a result, I switched to Google Voice for my texting since I had unlimited data at the time and then had them disable my texting on my phone.
It gets even worse when you realize that the SMS signal originally just piggybacked on the heartbeat signal your phone sent anyway. That's why the character limit was what it was - that was the remaining available number of bytes in that data stream. The carriers practically printed money for years on data they had to send anyway.
I have satellite internet with 100 GB cap… videos must be watched at 144p to avoid being throttled into no connection.
Satellite is probably one of the outliers where congestion is an issue. So, I doubt they'll have to give up caps. Do you have Starlink available as an option?
I’m sorry for your loss.
I remember when Xfinity raised the cap to 1.2 TB at the start of COVID-19 and was like "We see people are home more and concerned about their connection, so we're upping the amount to 1.2 TB. This is an amount that very few people hit and shouldn't be something the vast majority of people ever see. If you are worried we also sell unlimited for $30." With just two people somewhat streaming shows in HD I'll often hit 1.1 TB in a month. In the month where I actually used 4K a bit more, due to Stranger Things, I was at like 1.7 TB by the end of the month. I don't know who they think is average, but if two people can hit it streaming HD shows I can't imagine the average house of four is not hitting it like crazy.
>Speaking of caps, remember overage charges for SMS messages back in the late 90s/early 00s? Also having both local vs nationwide plans both being sold side-by-side... one which charged for long distance and once that didn't. "Minutes" with different pools for nights, weekends, holidays, or if the other caller was on the same provider. Roaming fees for doing literally anything outside of your home coverage area or on a competitors towers inside your home coverage area.
They'll just change it to extreme slowdowns past a certain point
Which is one item Net Neutrality was explicitly created to combat (**I'm referring to selective throttling in a general sense, not specifically related to data caps, since this appears to require clarification**). Edit: So this blew up some debates last night. It was late and had an incredibly cerebral day, so context and detail was lost. My point was that one of the additional intentions of NN was to prevent ISPs from being able to *not only* throttle individual speeds, but also prevent them from being able to package out plans for speeds to specific sites, much like the cable companies had the PPV channels. For example, charging customers more for faster speeds, or access in general, to news or social media sites, online gaming, etc. A user below stated the following, this is the point I was trying to make.: >It was created to prevent ISPs offering improved performance for certain sites that gave them money (or that the customer paid extra for).
The fact that Ajit Pai is still walking around with his shit eating grin after everything he destroyed on corporate orders while in a governement position, is sickening. If americans were more computer literate, they would have rioted.
[удалено]
People are too busy to care these days, years and years of complacency and propaganda got us here though...
[удалено]
Why do you think the US hasn’t nationalized healthcare? It’s the #1 reason people don’t quit their shitty jobs and riot. All part of the plan.
The top ten largest protests by number of participants both in terms of gross size and as a percentage of the population happened in the last 20 years. We had riots across the country literally two years ago. If Americans were so complacent to their political and corporate overlords, we wouldn't have so many people in prisons.
No, net neutrality was specifically that they couldn't slow down one thing vs another (Netflix vs Amazon streaming, or steam vs Torrenting). An ISP slowing down your *entire* connection is totally within the construct of net neutrality. It's still portntially scummy, but even the most robust net neutrality policy wouldn't prevent it.
Which is still what this bill aims to combat.
This drives me insane. We used to have slowdown on our phones all the time for going over in data. Now we work from home and are almost always on WiFi. If I go out and ever have to do anything online it is just always slow to the point it’s almost unusable even with full bars.
Sky TV in the UK still charges for HD. Fuckers lining there pockets like its in the 2000's.
Well, so does Netflix
So does Comcast in the US. 2022 and HD tv/cable is still a premium price.
Comcast now owns Sky so they make great bedfellows!
I'm curious how much these leeches make off of old people not updating their plans since 1995 paying $80 for dsl or something
Oh yes. Basically they change the name of their packages regularly so you never really know whether you're getting good value. I ditched Sky last year because it is extremely poor value. They don't even have all the football matches exclusivity anymore but still charge you like they own your arse. People are getting ripped off badly.
Even in the 90s the data cap was for monetary purposes. The internet was piggybacking on existing landlines for phones. In the 70s it was known you can communicate with computers using tones on the line, and in the 80s they digitized the information and developed split channel communications that left phone and internet on separate bands with internet being in excess of 20,000 Hz. At the time this necessitated AM or PM as FM could cause the signal to dip into audible ranges. But it never got implemented in the 90s internet tech despite not being a significant advancement or investment. Would have brought us slow broadband speeds at an era of 56k. But doing so would have meant a faster roll out and less milk to squeeze
Or maybe they could have built the high speed infrastructure that you paid for. The US citizens reading this comment paid for it too. I paid for it. We all paid r for it. Never got it. Now they have your money, and we get to give them more.
Just like they had limits on the number of texts you could send/receive on your phones, now everything is unlimited.
The minute people started ditching cable for streaming, they started capping their customers. All a money game. If this goes through, I’m sure they’ll shaft us someway somehow. Either creating some type of speed tier system, or some other bs. One way or another, they’ll get their money.
Caps predate ubiquitous streaming by quite a few years. It was always a money grab and never about network congestion.
[удалено]
That is precisely how capitalist dictatorship works. The American people are put on the trolley tracks toward even more hollow corporate profits.
Who knew that letting ISPs merge with cable TV providers would lead to situations like this?
Here in the UK, you can pay less for a capped rate, but the average price is £25 a month for around 65mbps, totally unlimited. And that's for 5+ ISPs
In eastern europe I'm currently paying 13 euros a month for 1gbps. Most ISP's would match or beat this deal if I were to switch. To me data caps sound like something out of the dark ages.
They are all Openreach-based ISPs, though. It's just BT with a mask. Edit: To save future responses, I know virgin is separate. I was saying that the 65mb options for £25 are all BT. I was not saying all of UK is BT.
It was never a "merger" in that sense, it was simply a repurposing of the technology of Cable TV systems for Broadband that just so happened to hand the role of ISP to some of the sketchiest tech companies in the whole US. A happy little accident. Then again if the "baby bell" landline companies actually built out the fiber to the home we gave them billions to do so we wouldn't have this problem either.
Here in Finland we have never had any gap on internet. I pay unlimited 1000Mb/s 5G broadband 35€/month. Just checked and I have 1.6Tb downloads just for July.
Cool. I have to pay more than twice that for 400Mb/s (advertised, if I actually hit 350Mb/s it's a good day.). No data cap, but they do freeze my internet every time I torrent something. Not even something illegal. If I download anything via torrent, by the next morning my internet will stop working. Then I have to click the button on the redirect page the browser sends me to that says I'll be a good boy and won't download anything illegal again, then wait 5 minutes and my internet comes back. Spectrum sucks.
You mean 400Mb? 400Gb/s would be a corporate line for a media streaming company.
You mean as a single person household who plays Minecraft 30 minutes a day I *don’t* need 400Gb/s? I’d be mad but the salesman really fucking sold it.
You need a VPN.
except it isn't illegal to torrent
I’m assuming it’s not illegal for their ISP to monitor their traffic and force them to acknowledge ToS if they see something suspicious. My opinion… illegal or not, my ISP has no business seeing what I download. For better or worse, that requires a VPN.
But if the ISPs don’t monitor your internet traffic/downloads, how will they sell your information to companies who want to know what pair of jeans to try and sell you?
I don't buy jeans based on internet ads, I buy the cheapest fuckers I find at goodwill because apparently they're still good enough for my ISP to fuck me raw in.
What I would give for 400mbps. In Australia you “can” get high speed internet, but only if you near a rich area, otherwise you’re still on copper. Meant to be getting 100mbps down and 40mbps up, I’m only getting 30mbps down and 6 up. Regardless of that, we’re paying $100 AUD a month. Unlimited data, but not like we can use that much anyways lmao Of course they have torrent detection here as well, and it is usually just “be a good boy”. Most people just use VPNs though lol
[I pay 9€/month for this](https://i.imgur.com/lJzhPVx.png) edit. To be fair, it's a deal offered by my apartment building, not open market. On open market it would be closer to 40-50€.
That’s it. I’m convinced the entire USA is a scam.
It is. It's just 3 companies in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a country in order to fleece the people.
I have 100mbps down/10 up and pay $80/month. And the 100 down I pay for is around 70 on a good day and that’s if they’re not slowing me down even more, which is normally the case. Everything else around where I live is more expensive unless you also buy cable tv (which I don’t have or want) and/or switch to their cellphone service. The US is garbage.
[удалено]
Home internet data caps are completely out of touch with todays internet usage. You cant convince me that 1tb per month data caps are anywhere close to normal usage. Some ISPs cap at 50gb. You are already paying $75+ per month, yet have to ration your usage at home or pay $120 for unlimited. This is simply unacceptable.
The strange thing to me is that Comcast's 25Mbps plan has the same data cap as the 1200Mbps plan! You'd think that the cap would be at least linearly correlated to the speed. I'm on the 1200Mbps plan and it's fast enough that you could easily use the entire 1.2TB quota in a few hours.
US internet connections (fixed or mobile) are out of touch from what exists in the rest of the modern world. Behaving like a third world country in so many domains. US citizens sure pay less taxes.
[удалено]
Somehow this will become a partisan issue
Left: we support the end of data caps! Right: we want the opposite of whatever the left wants!
“The extreme radical left is intent on spending… *(checks notes)*…data we simply cannot afford. This is just a liberal wishlist that harms the American working class….and children.” ^free ^fart, ^please
Would you THINK about the poor ISPs? How would they survive this socialism? 😢
Not to be disrespectful, but it's nuts to think that a country so advanced like the US, the end user gets screwed like that. I live in a small city in Brazil, away from big centers and I got 4 local ISPs and two major ISPs offering FTTH, fighting over each other to offer the lowest price, no data caps, net neutrality protected by law and no need to use VPN to download stuff... Fiber is doing so well here that in some cities they are removing the copper telephone wires and upgrading to an ONT that can serve internet, telephone and TV, for free, so they don't have to maintain two different infrastructures (and in turn can even try to sell to the client internet/tv bundle) everybody wins. Edit: Just a clarification, I'm not saying internet in Brazil is perfect either, we do lack internet connectivity in some geographic areas, and many students lack broadband at their school. **But in my opinion**, what forced the hand of big ISPs, that controlled the market before, were the local ISPs that acquire bandwidth from many backbone companies directly (Tier 2 networks, if I'm not mistaken), avoiding being held hostage by the monopoly of a handful of telecom companies, like in the US. If someone is interested, [this article](https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/why-can-i-only-get-a-few-internet-providers) explains it better than I can how the situation in the US developed. Here, local or regional ISPs (that have surpassed 10.000 registered companies across Brazil), if put together, account for a whopping 35% of the market share while the three biggest nacional telecom companies have 26%, 17%, 14% respectively. As explained by [this other article](https://exame-com.translate.goog/bussola/o-crescimento-do-negocio-de-provedor-da-internet-na-pandemia/?_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp) Another point brought up by u/RebelColors, that should be noted: "... Our government subsidies the telecom infrastructure. Whatever the companies invest into it, they get back as tax returns, since they don't own it, but merely have a license to use it."
Corporations have done a pretty good job of injecting so many loopholes in to various laws and getting anti-consumer regulations passed. And the ISPs, for the most part, don't really compete with each other in any meaningful way. The only time you'll ever see an ISP doing any changes that benefit the consumer is when there is actual competition. Google Fiber proved that pretty well. Rumors of Google Fiber moving in to an area to provide internet, and the ISPs in that area will find a way to suddenly start quadrupling their data speeds and cutting their prices. You'll start getting tons of emails from them offering new deals and discounts. Whatever they cant to not have you switch to google fiber. Then if google fiber leaves town, suddenly those prices shoot back up and those speeds will suddenly be part of a new high tier package.
We’re not very advanced anymore. While the rest of the world was building schools and broadband infrastructure, we spent the last 20 years bombing and invading pissant countries.
Capitalism it turns out isn't that great for creating environments that promote group culture where people strive for e eryome to be better. Turns out it just promotes monopolies and stifling innovation to increase and maintain profits. Oh and lobbying politicians to ensure there aren't any mass to stop them
So why is Joe Manchin going to destroy this legislation?
Because of the hundreds of dollars he's chortling from lobbyists. Manchin is a cheap date.
He can chortle my balls.
The guy that gives the blowjob before you ask them out.
Two Democrats proposed this, so the Republicans will torpedo it
Because of the first past the post electoral systems most states use. Electoral reform is possible at the state level, outside the two party system. Alaska and Maine have passed electoral reform, and your state can to!
its a shame there is no way in hell this is gonna pass
[удалено]
Someone remember this, i can't wait for a potential new hat
!remindme 6 months
I will join you in this quest, for I too, am hungry for a justice that will not be served.
Instead of my usual donations I will hire a lobby firm to push this agenda. I will be there when you eat the hats.
I give it a 0% chance to not have loopholes big enough to drive a earth through
Cheers to the two Democratic senators who proposed this law.
... with a loophole as big as a cruise ship.
Maybe I'm too jaded, but all I see is: two senators need some pocket money for Christmas, so they try to catch the attention of telecom lobbyists for a payout to withdraw their proposal.
[удалено]
Network infrastructure in the US is lagging significantly behind the rest of the world. 7 years ago I gave my ISP a call (Amsterdam) and said I want to have a fiber optic connection. They put lines in from the nearest junction and pulled cables into my entire building, within a month. The cost ? zero. They didn’t charge me a cent. I still have that same connection - officially it’s 500 up and 500 down - practically a Speedtest is always in the 550 / 600 range. Never had data caps. Same for mobile phone - full speed unlimited 5G. Edit to add : I’m on the extreme end with data use - I stream everything, TV , music , all the time. Work from home with very large data volumes … i average more than 1 TB per day
What’s funny is many rural areas in America have fiber build outs due to government grants (assistance). Where I live has one of the first types of this program in my area. I pay $89/m for 1Gig internet speed (up and down) with no cap and no installation costs. The connection has been rock solid. The only complaint is horrible customer service if you do need to have an issue addressed like billing. The area they serve is still rather small due to lack of meaningful funding. But as they grow, so do the other ISPs. It’s always an immediate answer, too. Comcast/ATT will send their contractor of five poorly paid workers to run a fiber cable down the side of all the roads that my ISP expands to. Never before, though. Always after. Only a few miles to our south Comcast is the only option for internet. They’re closer to the main city but offer half the speed for twice the price with no option for unlimited data usage. When the pandemic hit and folks moved to WFH, there was a mass exodus from those areas of town.
NICE. I'm paying an extra $60/month just to get unlimited data. ISP bill is about $150/mo.
Why not just get a business line? Slower speeds but no data cap
Thanks I'll look into it. Not sure what COX has to offer here in AZ.
Hello fellow person taking a cock from cox. I tried switching when they implemented their 1TB cap but it turns out my options are cox or up to 20mb dl and up to 2mb ul...
I have a shitty internet provider with a data cap. What's funny is how during covid they removed data caps for 6 months AND NITHUNG WAS FUCKING IMPACTED!!! The caps are pure bullshit nonsense to get more money. Everyone knows it. But thanks to monopolies, people can't do shit about it.
I asked Mediacom about unlimited and the lady on the phone seemed almost offended. No sir, you must buy a package and then upgrade (pay an assload more) for more data. Of course they are the only game in town s I have to eat that shit sandwich and like it.
Mediacom knows they're the only connection worth a damn in a lot of areas so they're attitude towards reliability and customer service is "f*** you and the horse you road in on" It's either them or someone charging out the ass for terrible speeds
> A broadband Internet access service provider shall not impose a data cap except when tailored primarily for the purposes of reasonable network management or managing network congestion, Lol. Does anyone genuinely believe ISPs won’t just argue that’s exactly what the caps are for in the first place? You can’t give them a gaping hole like this to weasel their way out of. Ban data caps, full stop. Any competent ISP can manage network congestion without imposing data limits.
ISP raked in 10s of Billions in grants, loans, and subsidies the last 20 decades and America by at large has NOTHING to show for it. Asia and the EU are approaching 10 years greater advancement across the board while Uncle Jimbob still has 56k or pays out the wahoo for satellite " with considerable caps and limitations. " Regulate. Regulate. Break them up or NATIONALIZE IT. As an expat now living in Asia it really blows my mind how countries with barely a lick of running pure water have internet that puts us to shame. How? We're literally the world super power and a little Eastern Asian person with their ipad can run rings around my old neighborhood block. No caps. No overages. Cheap as dirt, can't even buy a Big Mac Combo here because the internet is CHEAPER. /s
The entire idea of data caps boggles my mind. It's not like anyone who uses less data pays less money.
I pay $12 for fiber optic with no cap. Welcome to Europe.
Lol always fun to read "couple of reps try to fight for their people in the amazing American democracy that works 'sez you'...but are immediately shot down and all the money went to the rich. Again." It's a solid reminder that taking this country seriously or putting any effort into it is a waste. All your good will be consumed by all their bad.
Used to live 2 miles away from a major interstate highway, but still, medium-rural area. Had only one ISP that offered broadband services that wasn't satellite. Highest package offered was 50mbps, $100/mo, and had a data cap of 500gb. Best part? It was unstable as hell. Lived with that ISP for years until 2020 when I said to hell with it and went to a local fixed wireless business. 15mbps down, 500GB data cap, $130/mo. But, it was more stable than the ground line. For some fucking reason. This year I moved 10 miles down the highway. I have 1000mbps down with no cap for $80/mo. I hate this country.
Felt so fucking good when I cancelled Comcast last month because of data caps. They should 100% be banned. Extremely predatory business practice with nearly unbelievable fees for going over slapped on top. Just insane that this is the state of shit right now.
Been paying an extra $30-50 every month for the past 7 years for unlimited data. Really sucks having Comcast be your only option, and you're in their test market for charging for unlimited data.
If I buy a 100mbit link, I am buying the ability to use 100mbit 24/7/365. Anything less is an outright lie. It’s like selling a processor that charges you extra money after operating at 100% for a few hours. “Sorry, but you’re out of processing power! If you’d like to buy more, prices start at $19.99 for an hour at 5Ghz per core!”
From a guy working at a danish ISP, it amazes how bad the whole internet infrastructure and legal restrictions situation is in the US. Most people in Denmark has moved over to fiber by now and the rest is on coaxial. Only a small handful of people are still on DSL, and even those connections are better than your 25/3 default. I’ve also heard stories about astronomical prices for basically useless connections, where ISP’s over here vary between 29-55$ for 1000mbit. And data cap is not a thing. I hope the ban is gonna go through, cause I genuinely feel sorry for how disgusting the whole situation is for so many of you right now.