 
Voyager2K2
join:2001-10-04
Wayne, PA | Cable Only And all of you still think cable rocks? | |
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Vchat20
Landing is the REAL challenge
join:2003-09-16
Warren, OH | Re: Cable Only yes because Roadrunner doesnt have any b/w caps  | |
| | | ThatJimGuy
Premium
join:2003-03-28
Saluda, VA | Re: Cable Only None at all?
what is your throughput on cable? | |
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Kansas City, MO
clubs: | Re: Cable Only 3mbps for regular, or 6mbps for premium. No caps, never has been. | |
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anomus
@mindspring.com | Re: Cable Only Yup, Ive gotten over 5 Tbytes of stuff so far and it keeps on comming.  | |
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aaronfitz
Premium
join:2004-03-06
Cedar Rapids, IA | No glass ceilings on Charter, either. | |
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one_bored_si
join:2003-03-10
Montebello, CA | Re: Cable Only yeah, they can't afford to lose any more customers to the mammoth services offered by the competition. aka(dialup) | |
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aaronfitz
Premium
join:2004-03-06
Cedar Rapids, IA
| Re: Cable Only said by one_bored_si  :yeah, they can't afford to lose any more customers to the mammoth services offered by the competition. aka(dialup) I get full 3000/256 service (actually a little more) consistantly. I've had one outage that wasn't a power outage in the 7 months I've had Charter for my ISP, and it was resolved in a day.
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"Time is in abundance for procrastinators," So you should become one like me! I claim no responsibility if anyone is unable to understand my twisted, sarcastic sense of humor... | |
| |
Vchat20
Landing is the REAL challenge
join:2003-09-16
Warren, OH | 3000/380 . could do with more upload. but overall im quite pleased. | |
| | dsanders16
join:2001-02-24
Auburn, AL | I dont understand why its such a big deal, why is bandwidth even expensive, what exactly does it take other then cabale switches and cables to give someone that much bandwidth. | |
| | | haplo2112
join:2003-05-12
Charlton, MA
| Re: Cable Only You hit the Nail directly on the head....the cost of bandwidth is an artifical number. The providers just don't want to you to know that though.
The bigger problem is the upstream issue. You Cable/DSL provider gets their bandwidth from someone else and on up the stream untill you hit the really big providers that own and provide the "BackBones" of the Internet.
However up at that level bandwidth is really a seriously artifical number.
It's always been my belief that the FCC(and equivalents in other nations) should require ommunications companies to invest a significant portion of profits realized from internet services (ie anything that own which moves about digital bits) back into the net thereby lowering that already artifical cost. | |
| | | | 
theBOFH
join:2003-08-27
Waterbury, CT
edit:
October 20th, @06:02PM
| Re: Cable Only said by haplo2112 :You hit the Nail directly on the head....the cost of bandwidth is an artifical number. The providers just don't want to you to know that though. The bigger problem is the upstream issue. You Cable/DSL provider gets their bandwidth from someone else and on up the stream untill you hit the really big providers that own and provide the "BackBones" of the Internet. However up at that level bandwidth is really a seriously artifical number.
Not quite true. Bandwidth has a cost. Providing bandwidth to customers as a service has a cost.
There is the cost of a company's capex infrastructure amortized over the life of the equipment, the cost of transit and peering (which I think is what you were trying to allude to in your second paragraph), there are leases for datacenters, cages in colos, metro fiber runs, backhaul between POPs, support costs, salaries, ad nauseum. There is nothing cheap about bandwidth.
The cost of a T1 (1.5 Mbps) is around $1000/mo, a T3 (28 T1s) can be as high as $12,000/month. OC3's (155 Mbps) can cost anywhere between $20,000 to $45,000 a month. Considering that most DSL users are roughly 1.5M/256k, an OC3 would support 100 DSL users downloading at their max and roughly 600 DSL users uploading at their max. With cable, figure about 50 users downloading at their max rate.
Not only can transit be expensive, but the routers and switches can be very expensive. Some of the Cisco and Juniper routers and switches when fully configured can cost into the millions. Not only does your ISP have expensive routers, but every ISP they buy transit from has even more expensive routers. This is one of the numerous reasons why a T3 isn't $99/month. SLAs, latency, jitter, support, etc also have a lot to do with it.
The reason cable and DSL are so cheap is due to over-subscription. The ISP signs up more users than they actually have bandwidth for. It keeps costs low and provides good service when the majority of users aren't bandwidth hogs (i.e. the user's traffic is "bursty": email, chat, web browsing, small sporadic downloads, telnet, ssh, etc.) It does not scale when people run high traffic servers, participate heavily in p2p, or download large files all day long.
Bandwidth is not yet a commodity, though it seems that way to people who are only exposed to consumer level services.
--
*clickity click* | |
| | | | |
Not so fast
@hinet.net
| Re: Cable Only Nice try bud, but you're evading a critical point with all your BS.
"The costs of the capex infrastructure amortized over the life of the equipment, the cost of transit and peering."
Yep, but why are these costs so high? These are part of the artificially inflated costs. Simply shifting from the cost of a router to other expenditures is an obfuscation. Nice try though. | |
| | | | | |
theBOFH
join:2003-08-27
Waterbury, CT
edit:
October 22nd, @03:23PM
| Re: Cable Only said by Not so fast:
Nice try bud, but you're evading a critical point with all your BS.
"The costs of the capex infrastructure amortized over the life of the equipment, the cost of transit and peering."
Yep, but why are these costs so high? These are part of the artificially inflated costs. Simply shifting from the cost of a router to other expenditures is an obfuscation. Nice try though.
Start an ISP with multigigabit backhaul between POPs, dispersed throughout the country. Purchase enough transit from multiple providers to service your multigigabit network. Purchase routers capable of servicing said links. Guarantee 1.5Mbps symmetrical with an SLA and sell this for $40.00. Time how long it takes you to go out of business.
Better yet... lay your own fiber between POPs, build your own buildings that your POPs will occupy. Develop a new last mile delivery method, so you don't have to rely on the fiber and copper of the ILECs to get your cheap bandwidth to your customer. Create a business plan, taking into account all of the potential variables. Offer 24x7 support, SLAs, 1.5Mbps symmetrical at a price point of $40.00/month.
Show me a positive ROI within 24 months, and I will fund your venture.
As far as capex, I'm sorry, but quagga on Intel/AMD/etc will not support gigabit throughput, so you'll have to purchase Cisco or Juniper for your POPs. They aren't cheap and there are reasons why. Do you think some kid with linux and an old Dell can provide the stability, scalablity and performance of routers and switches made by the likes of Cisco, Juniper, Foundry, Extreme, RedBack, etc?
Prove me wrong. Design a router than can forward packets at near line speed... Say a 1Tbps backplane? Offer the ability to insert cards that will support Ethernet, OC3 through OC192, T1 - T3, HDLC, SONET, ATM. How much can you sell it for? Who is going to design it for you? Will they design it for free? Who is going to manufacture it? Who is going to respin the boards when you realize you've made a design flaw? Who's going to design the ASICs and manufacture them? Don't tell me you'd use an FPGA for the logic on this magical device? Sill, who'd program the FPGAs?
Things cost money. That is my only point. There is no bandwidth cartel that is secretly setting arbitrary prices on bandwidth so Johnny Consumer (who likes to download "warez", "pr0n", movies, and mp3s) has to pay $30 more a month to get a business class DSL or cable connection (which is still cheap. very cheap...) After all, you could be paying $600-$1000 a month for T1 or frame relay. Unless, of course, Cogent is able to drop 100Mbps to your location for $1000/month.
--
*clickity click* | |
| 
Musicscom
Premium
join:2004-08-24
Washington, DC
| FCC Violation I do believe that is an actual F.C.C. violation. You can't simply cut off a telephone service, which is what all Internet services are, without proper notification.
Which is also why I said the F.C.C. should take control out of the hands of IANA, ICANN, and the ISP's.
Hey, it worked for the telephones, didn't it? | |
| | 
borborpa
Slipping Slowly Into Oblivion
Premium
join:2002-02-20
New Cumberland, PA
clubs:
 ·Speakeasy
| Re: FCC Violation said by Musicscom :I do believe that is an actual F.C.C. violation. You can't simply cut off a telephone service, which is what all Internet services are, without proper notification. Which is also why I said the F.C.C. should take control out of the hands of IANA, ICANN, and the ISP's. Hey, it worked for the telephones, didn't it? Cable internet is NOT a telephone service, or else you would have to pay USF fees on your cable bill. The cable industry FOUGHT to make sure their internet was NOT classified as telecommunications.
--
There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.[AIM - BoyBandsMakeUGay] | |
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exseven
Premium
join:2003-05-23
Stoney Creek, ON | Re: FCC Violation too bad the FCC has no jurisdiction in CANADA | |
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hailinfantry
Bizarro Quinn
Premium
join:2004-01-18
Brooklyn, NY
| Re: FCC Violation said by exseven :too bad the FCC has no jurisdiction in CANADA
LOL! That's a good point. | |
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BonezX
Basement Dweller
Premium
join:2004-04-13
Canada | Re: FCC Violation i can download till my eyes bleed | |
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hailinfantry
Bizarro Quinn
Premium
join:2004-01-18
Brooklyn, NY
| said by Musicscom :I do believe that is an actual F.C.C. violation. You can't simply cut off a telephone service, which is what all Internet services are, without proper notification. Which is also why I said the F.C.C. should take control out of the hands of IANA, ICANN, and the ISP's. Hey, it worked for the telephones, didn't it?
In your typical style, you're pulling info from someplace besides the actual law...I can give you a hint but it would be flaming.
As has been pointed out here NUMEROUS TIMES, ON THE FRONT PAGE...the FCC has deemed cable internet to NOT BE A TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE! Thus, it isn't regulated in the same manner.
Please brush up before posting. Wait, you've never done it before. | |
| | |
Musicscom
Premium
join:2004-08-24
Washington, DC
| Re: FCC Violation Maybe you should be the one doing the reading:
The Federal Communications Commission and local franchising authorities are responsible for enforcing a variety of cable television regulations.
»www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/complain.html
And you're already flaming. | |
| | | |
hailinfantry
Bizarro Quinn
Premium
join:2004-01-18
Brooklyn, NY
| Re: FCC Violation said by Musicscom :Maybe you should be the one doing the reading: The Federal Communications Commission and local franchising authorities are responsible for enforcing a variety of cable television regulations. » www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/complain.htmlAnd you're already flaming.
We aren't talking about cable television. What planet do you live on? The FCC ruled that Cable HSI IS NOT A TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE! Are you mental? It is free from the same regulation as a telco service. Get a net, fall into it. | |
| | | |
Musicscom
Premium
join:2004-08-24
Washington, DC | That's why I'm proposing a law to change that.
It is still communications, and it's still telecommunications.
You have a foul mouth; lack of education or simply lack of good manners? | |
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hailinfantry
Bizarro Quinn
Premium
join:2004-01-18
Brooklyn, NY
edit:
October 20th, @03:33PM
| Re: FCC Violation said by Musicscom :That's why I'm proposing a law to change that. It is still communications, and it's still telecommunications. You have a foul mouth; lack of education or simply lack of good manners?
You have a problem following logic. You can't propose a law anyway. Who the hell do you think you are?
I may have a foul mouth, but I have accurate info.
Did it not occur to you that Cogeco is a Canadian company in the first place? What the hell are you on? | |
| | | | |
Musicscom
Premium
join:2004-08-24
Washington, DC
edit:
October 20th, @07:13PM
| I'm an American. What are you? Any American can propose a law, or didn't they teach you that either, in school?
According to the universities I've graduated, I'm an expert, in more than one field, Telecommunications and Communications being one of them, which means, I can not only propose laws, but I can present Expert Testimony in a court of law, or before the Congress, etc.. Did you not know that about college graduates?
Now, I might also ask, who are you?
And by the way, the American people paid for the invention and all of the copyrights and trademarks that go along with the Internet, including packet switching. The Department of Defense controls these copyrights and patents as part of the research agreement with the original authors. But they are the property of the American people. America has "chosen" to share them with the world. At least give credit to your fellow countrymen. I know that none of the other countries wants to acknowledge our contribution, but you should not be joining foreign nationals in trying to redefine our copyright rights. They are still American by our laws and by International Treaty which recognises the full validity of American Copyright Law. Not to mention the various patents and Patent Law.
And where is this decision you spoke of about cable not being telecommunications? Cite your source. | |
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hailinfantry
Bizarro Quinn
Premium
join:2004-01-18
Brooklyn, NY
moderated:
October 20th, @08:08PM
| Re: FCC Violation Are you saying that the United States should "take the internet back"? What college did you attend that they teach such closed thinking?
Being an American doesn't mean being a Fascist. | |
| 
technick
Premium
join:2000-12-16
Loganville, GA
|  Here's An Idea
| |
| | 
pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
| Re: Here's An Idea said by technick :Why don't you stop whining *aka bitching* over this issue, get a lawyer, and drag them to court for false advertising. That is the only way you are going to get anything accomplished, and yes it will cost money.
You are 100% correct here. This isn't an unreasonable case to bring to the courts. All you are asking is for them to codify the definition of "unlimited." If I was in this position I would not even ask for any cash (maybe just a $1 token amount). All I would want is for the the service provider to live up to its claims of "unlimited" service or back away from the claim. Either action will be good for consumers since they will know for what they are paying.
--
www.swiftvets.com
9/11 was the best thing to happen to Michael Moore
Win another one for the Gipper! Bush/Cheney 2004 | |
| | | | | electric_dsl
join:2004-07-20
Pickering, ON | how cogecos advertises its dl/up caps?
unlimited time with data caps says o right on the site | |
| | | |
exseven
Premium
join:2003-05-23
Stoney Creek, ON
edit:
October 20th, @09:46AM
| Article Post is off cogeco doesnt say ANYWHERE its unlimited, actually quite the opposite - it states 15gigs for standard and 30 gigs for pro. The Article poster should have read into the issue before he posted blindly.
oh and read the thread - he WAS sent warnings (3 actually) | |
| | | 
fireflier
Coffee. . .Need Coffee
Premium
join:2001-05-25
Limbo
 ·Skype
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: how in the world...
how in the world...
...do you go through over 200 gigs of bandwidth a month?!?
If I had to guess, I'd say movie downloads were a big part of that.
--
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk? | |
| | | | 
Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
West Chester, PA
| Well its easy when you download every movie/warez release that comes along...but god forbid you accuse them of doing that, if you ask them if thats what they were doing the usual response is
"I don't download warez, I download unlicensed anime, freeware programs, and I feel the need to download every linux distro multiple times per month"
as a side note to users who say "Well I download the beta DVD releases of "insert linux distro name here", so thats atleast 4-9gig per release"....If your actually serious about your statement and your too idiotic to figure out how to update your kernel and modules without redownloading the entire distro, I suggest you stop using linux now as there is no hope for you.
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Forum Posts:5307 | |
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aaronfitz
Premium
join:2004-03-06
Cedar Rapids, IA | What does it matter what he's doing with his bandwidth? That's not the issue here. Too many people on this site try to sway the subject. | |
| 
loserhead
3 Billion Chinese People Can Be Wrong
join:2004-01-01
Ellijay, GA
edit:
October 20th, @09:55AM
| oh come on Upon reflection, I do not wish to post. Take me back!
--AA-- | |
| electric_dsl
join:2004-07-20
Pickering, ON
| waste of space Cogeco is NOT UNLIMITED. They advertise their caps but they are soft and usually will allow you to go over them without fees.
Remember this is 5MB and 10MB speeds not shitty 1.5 or 3MB.
Besides 200 GIGS in less then 30 days is a lot of data and there is no way it can be legal. There is no justification for that type of traffic for one person, specially if there is caps. These people who donwlod this much crap onto their computers need to get the hell out of their homes, get a life or something other then sitting behind their PC downloading so much garbage. | |
| 
IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL | Typo in story "should men just that" men should be mean - right?
I hate when I do this - I do it often - so I'm not trying to be a jerk. Just thought it was worth fixing. | |
| cableamazed
join:2004-03-22
East Berlin, PA
| Tel. is the way I work for a cable co. and during the day my speeds are around 3mps but in the evening they drop to 300 k , i say do away with fiber and broadband and go back to copper, heavy downloaders do degrade our service, thats why they should always be a cap. If you read alot of your contracts , it will say if you inter fear with another customer we have the right to terminate you , which we have.... | |
| |
aaronfitz
Premium
join:2004-03-06
Cedar Rapids, IA | Re: Tel. is the way Service wouldn't be degraded by everyone using their internet connections to their unlimited capability if you providers weren't cheap and didn't oversell service. | |
| | | VirtualLarry
Premium
join:2003-08-01
| Re: Tel. is the way said by aaronfitz :
Service wouldn't be degraded by everyone using their internet connections to their unlimited capability if you providers weren't cheap and didn't oversell service.
What I honestly don't understand is, why don't broadband providers explicitly describe their "oversell provisions"?
Back in the days of dial-up ISPs, many ISPs used to brag about their dial-in pool user-to-modem ratios. "Industry standard" used to be around 20:1, but some top-tier ISPs used to brag about 10:1, and generally, low-budget ISPs didn't dare mention their ratios, because they were probably much closer to something like 40-50:1.
There's really nothing wrong with disclosing the numbers. Providers should be clear and up-front about such things, as they do directly affect the level of service that users will see.
It was however, well-understood that consumer dial-up ISPs were in fact over-provisioned, and you were not to stay connected 24x7, and that you should purchase a "dedicated line" for that. Many businesses did. Truthfully, nothing has really changed in that regard even in the era of "always-on" consumer broadband providers. The only difference is, the amount of both corporate advertising deception, as well as the number of "abusers" of the service, has increased quite a bit on both sides. | |
| melonduck
join:2004-07-19
Atlanta, GA
| caps = false advertisement someone on this thread said Cogeco states 15GB cap on their website( I assume that's bytes, not bits), then someone said the advertised speed is 5mbps or 10mbps ( I assume this is bits per second)
Something is not right here :0
if I pay for 1 bit per second then my cap should be just that 1 bit PER SECOND which is equivalent to about 324 kilo bytes a month
1 bit/s / 8 = 0.125 byte/second
0.125 byte/second x 60 seconds/min = 7.5 bytes/min
7.5 bytes/min x 60 mins/hr = 450 bytes/hr
450 bytes/hr x 24hr/day = 10800 bytes/day
10800 bytes/day x 30days/month = 324000 bytes/month (This is the CAP for one month)
if Cogeco caps 15GB per month then they should just advertise their connection speed to be 46.3 kbps
and dont give me the BS heavy bandwith usage can affect/degrade the network performance because this is not the point here. The point is I pay for what You offer (Cap should be = to speed offered/paid).
If they can't take the heat, then don't offer/advertise it | |
| | 
jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: caps = false advertisement Huh? I think you are confused. One is a measure of how long you wait for the data to be delivered (speed) and the other is how much data you take (quantity). They are totally unrelated aspects of service.
Everyday simpleton analogy: if you drive from your hometown, Atlanta, to WashDC it's the same number of miles whether you drive it at 15mph or 150mph. Speed does not alter the distance. | |
| | | | timoteo21
join:2002-05-14
Los Angeles, CA
| Okay, so which are you going to sign up for: 46 kbps that you can run round the clock or 5 Mbps with a 15GB cap?
I'll take the 5 Mbps with cap, so I can quickly get what I want when I want it. Over-subscription is our friend. It lets a bunch of us take turns using a very high speed infrastructure that would be far too expensive for any of us to have exclusive use of.
Plus, the whole concept of "connection speed" is meaningless without defining connection "to where". Surely, you don't imagine Cogeco needs to lay fiber to Timbuktu, or to your friend down the street on dial-up, to guarantee your 5 Mbps connection? I would be surprised if there is 15 GB cap on the amount of data you can write to your modem. So, there's your unlimited data transfer. Just no guarantee on how many hops it makes after that. | |
|
COmon timeWARner
@aol.com | So i do that in 30 days and average about 20gig in 5 days could use a little more speed timeWARner. | |
| 
Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
| Just wondering 150 gig's a month, do you get out much, do you have s social life, pick up any sweeties at the bar. Cruise the strip looking for lot lizards, or do you just watch porno all month. I mean it's either that or you are running a business out of your consumer line, if so I don't have any sympathy for you, get a business line and stop bitching.
--
»www.gobpl.com | |
| |
See 7 replies to this post | |
LLivingLarge
Better Than You
Premium
join:2003-12-03
Roslyn, NY | $49.95 heaven... Optonline gives you 10Mbit/1Mbit and UNLIMITED DOWNLOADING. | |
| |
See 11 replies to this post | |
Eye4got
join:2004-06-02
Lancaster, PA
| Complying with the unknown The dilemma:
A guy gets a cable modem. He is a relatively new user, doesn't remember the 110 baud days and wouldn't associate his three or four daily hours of moderate to heavy usage with abuse. He digs into the Grateful Dead archive and starts making some custom mix discs of his own. While he downloads, he likes to watch a little rtsp://videosrv.netscalibur.it/encoder/sole24tv.rm so he can keep up on what's happening back in the homeland.
At 300 kilobytes (or better) a second (no sweat for cable modems in my area) he can get one gigabyte per hour with no problem. In reality, he averages 380 kilobytes a second, so in his two and a half hour download, he has 3 gigabytes of concert files.
He's had his computer on for four hours today, two and a half hours of that were spent downloading, and he did his e-mail while that was happening. He used the Yahoo chat thing to chat with his cable modem equipped neighbors while he was downloading, including a neighbor who likes his online gaming. His neighbor says the ping times to his game server are great on the cable modem right now, he's liquefying some guy in Walla Walla on his online game. Then, he watched some streaming TV after doing some web browsing when his downloads were nearly finished. He transferred a little over 4 gigabytes in total today. He has yet to discover all the archives of the other jam bands, but he'll be busy with the Grateful Dead archives for some time yet. That's OK though, he just had an incident with a stray banana, a prostitute and a llama that will keep him from going to work for the next three months or so, he'll have plenty of time to browse the jam band archives.
He's not aware that his usage is causing a problem, because his neighbors who have the same ISP are telling him that their internet is working well and is fast. All is normal and well. He has no reason to believe that he's abusing his service. He's the kind of guy who doesn't want to make things worse for other people. Last summer, he had a gathering of like minded people who, like him, had a power tool erotica fetish. Unusual, maybe. Legal, for sure. He was worried about dimming the lights of his neighbors, so before the "big day", he powered up everything possible and checked with his neighbors for degradation of service, none was apparent. He felt confident that he would cause no harm when his wacky friends came over.
He transferred 80 gigabytes this month, people have been cut off for less. He'll likely do more next month, even in the same 3 or 4 hours of usage per day. We don't know if he will get a letter or not.
Silly scenario aside, how does this perfectly legal user refrain from abusing his service? Is he an abuser, or not? Without a good technical understanding of just how much data is being transferred and what constitutes network degradation, it becomes difficult to understand the concept. How do you comply with the undefined?
He could limit his speed on his downloads so that his ping time to anywhere wouldn't increase, and still limit him to 4 gigabytes per day, but he could still be abusive, even if no one on his node saw a 1 millisecond increase of latency because of his usage at any time, to anywhere.
All of this brings me to my questions.
Is this person's usage "reasonable and prudent"? Why or why not?
Is it unreasonable for the user of a service to expect definition for compliance? What is wrong with this
"Users whose connections have transferred over a combined (incoming and outgoing) *your threshold goes here* gigabytes in a 30 day period *may* (not will) be considered for disconnection of service per definition of abuse of service."
or any variation of that? That keeps it loosely defined enough to encompass heavy users and abusers du jour.
People seem to be getting nailed for heavy usage, not for causing additional latency.
People who actually want to comply will then have the means to do so, and people who are in the top percent can be told "I told you so, here it is".
Doesn't DOCSIS provide for subscriber traffic management?
Systematic reduction of the heaviest users will reduce costs for the ISP, but what will be done after the heavy users are all gone, and the broader average climbs? Every marketing blitz will bring in a certain amount of heavy users, and a certain amount of people who saw the commercials and actually want to watch legal streaming video and do the things in the commercials.
If P2P and the upstream are what's driving the costs up, what can be done technologically to increase the upstream channel?
Let's keep the discussion away from "illegal" uses of the network, there are plenty of entirely legal ways to transfer a lot of data on a connection. I've done 20 GB a week on my 768/128 DSL while not trying too hard. Legally. | |
| | 
gatorkram
Spelling and Grammer impared
Premium
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC
clubs: | Re: Complying with the unknown Very well said. | |
| | |
shadowspank
@covad.net
| Re: Complying with the unknown One of the main problems that cable users face is that the internet is hubed and not switched from the cable provider for the Internet its just another channel for them. That's why it mess;s with others Internet when they use it. If the cable providers did the work right and setup the networks with the right hardware it would not be a problem. | |
| | VirtualLarry
Premium
join:2003-08-01
| Excellent post! Those are very good points.
Something interesting to consider, in contrast, is what dial-up ISPs did when their modem-pool was full, and therefore not accepting any more dial-in connections. (In other words, some of the customers were getting a busy signal.)
*Good* ISPs, would go out and expand their modem pools, purchasing more modems, and leasing more lines from the telco for their POP. Presumably, the ISP was not a fly-by-night operation, and was making a profit from the payments of existing subscribers, so they could afford to expand their POPs as needed. (Proper logistical as well as financial planning.)
Likewise, some had a system for disconnecting those users that tended to spend an excessive amount of time connected to the dial-in ISP's modem bank. Presumably, as long as no-one tried to dial-in and got a busy signal, then the people currently connected were not causing a degradation of service for other users. But once they were, then the ones that had been connected the longest, should be the first ones to be forcibly disconnected, if necessary, and even to have a time-out period enforced for those accounts, so that they couldn't automatically re-dial and connect in again.
Something similar should probably be done with "excessive" broadband users. Such that the ones doing the most transfers during a certain period, should have their bandwidth throttled during times of peak usage, such that their usage will not degrade the service for others. That is all perfectly technically feasable.
What is most disturbing about this whole thing though, and it smacks of greedy profiteering here, is that these broadband providers are considering kicking off users, not because they are explicitly causing network degradations for other users of the service, but because these users are reducing the profit margin that the company will see. That is just wrong, and if the provider's business model would collapse due to the user actually using the connection that was sold to them by that company, then the company should not have made the offer for the service in the first place.
Either the company is basically guilty of fraud, or they had a very ill-conceived business/service model to begin with.
Something has to be done here. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with degrading the service of heavy users, in order to make the network more manageable and usable for other customers. Many university networks do just that.
Anything else is just evil greed from the providers, period. If they go bankrupt because of it, I won't be sorry. | |
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ISP-at-fault
@12.111.x.x
|  Unlimited means unlimited--ISP chooses word
If an ISP feels that it may lose some subscribers if it were to use a non-misleading term instead of "unlimited", that's not the subscribers' faults.
In any normal legal contract, a word means its plain, English meaning (unless it is a defined term).
The ISP cannot use "unlimited" for marketing purposes and then be able to disavow it when it comes time to deliver. | |
| | 
3SGTE
ST215W
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-23
there
clubs:
| Re: Unlimited means unlimited--ISP chooses word said by ISP-at-fault:
The word "unlimited" means "unlimited."
If an ISP feels that it may lose some subscribers if it were to use a non-misleading term instead of "unlimited", that's not the subscribers' faults.
In any normal legal contract, a word means its plain, English meaning (unless it is a defined term).
The ISP cannot use "unlimited" for marketing purposes and then be able to disavow it when it comes time to deliver.
Read the thread.
Go to cogeco's website.
Call them.
Look at the AUP.
Everywhere has mention of the limit.
I would like to know who wrote the article here at DSLR. It would seem the use of "unlimited" in the article was inappropriate.
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The preceeding post may contain dry humor. Read and respond at own risk. Please note firefox advertising balance device aka: IE avatar | |
| | Eye4got
join:2004-06-02
Lancaster, PA
| On a side note, I remember when Prolog (www.ptd.net) started with the cable modems in my area many years ago, their TOS said that anything over 1 gigabyte in a 30 day period was subj |
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Broadband's Glass Ceiling
