F American ISP's

[saden1]

In certain areas both Verizon and Comcast have ridiculous 100 megabit speeds (I believe Verizon offers 200 Mbps in NOVA). I honestly don't get why anyone needs that kind of speed or willing to pay $100+ a month for an internet connection. 15 Mbps gets you all the content that can be had and at $30 a month with the threat of terminating service every six months keep it at that price that's all I need.

As for the 2% being affected, well when that 2% accounts for 25+ percent of all the traffic it's probably a good idea to give those mofos the boot or make them pay more. Asking users not to go over 50 GIG in a month sounds very reasonable.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by saden1

In certain areas both Verizon and Comcast have ridiculous 100 megabit speeds (I believe Verizon offers 200 Mbps in NOVA). I honestly don't get why anyone needs that kind of speed or willing to pay $100+ a month for an internet connection. 15 Mbps gets you all the content that can be had and at $30 a month with the threat of terminating service every six months keep it at that price that's all I need.

As for the 2% being affected, well when that 2% accounts for 25+ percent of all the traffic it's probably a good idea to give those mofos the boot or make them pay more. Asking users not to go over 50 GIG in a month sounds very reasonable.

If you use Netflix, Hulu, PSN, YouTube, and/or NHL Gamecenter (like I will be using soon) it's very easy to go over 50 gig a month. I think I'm up to 200 Gigs a month last time I checked.

We can't win with the big media companies. First they say don't download stuff on torrents. Okay fine, we'll go use these legitimate services which give us the same stuff without taking up space on our hard drives. "Oh no that uses to much bandwidth. We're going to have to put up a cap." Until of course you stream stuff like Pay-Per Views and other pay services on Comcast and AT&Ts network, then all of a sudden bandwidth is unlimited.

The bottom line is with more and more people watching less cable (and some unplugging altogether) their business model is being threatened. And somehow prices are going up but quality is going down. Ah the joys of monopolistic "competition."

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by saden1

In certain areas both Verizon and Comcast have ridiculous 100 megabit speeds (I believe Verizon offers 200 Mbps in NOVA). I honestly don't get why anyone needs that kind of speed or willing to pay $100+ a month for an internet connection. 15 Mbps gets you all the content that can be had and at $30 a month with the threat of terminating service every six months keep it at that price that's all I need.

As for the 2% being affected, well when that 2% accounts for 25+ percent of all the traffic it's probably a good idea to give those mofos the boot or make them pay more. Asking users not to go over 50 GIG in a month sounds very reasonable.

Unless you're making six figures or have a successful, profitable rental property, or something that helps you bear the cost of fiber, fiber is not an optimal decision. Oh, and by switching to fiber, you can't go back to cheaper copper services.

Caps are a different issue though. Cable internet is a "common good" at times of peak usage. It is rivalrous but non-excludable. That means that while everyone can use it, if there are too many users, the users prevent each other from enjoying the ""full" benefit of the service. The way cable internet works, the "pipeline" is shared between multiple users, and if it becomes "full" during "rush hour", service suffers.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by SirClintonPortis

Unless you're making six figures or have a successful, profitable rental property, or something that helps you bear the cost of fiber, fiber is not an optimal decision. Oh, and by switching to fiber, you can't go back to cheaper copper services.

Caps are a different issue though. Cable internet is a "common good" at times of peak usage. It is rivalrous but non-excludable. That means that while everyone can use it, if there are too many users, the users prevent each other from enjoying the ""full" benefit of the service. The way cable internet works, the "pipeline" is shared between multiple users, and if it becomes "full" during "rush hour", service suffers.

Cable is still plenty fast for me (usually 18mbps to 22mbps on a wireless connection out of 25mbps) but it's not without limitations. For example when I play NHL 12 online I have to turn the internet off on my laptop to prevent lag. I rarely get problems with Netflix and Hulu but sometimes it's hard to get above their "Medium SD" quality.

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag59

Cable is still plenty fast for me (usually 18mbps to 22mbps on a wireless connection out of 25mbps) but it's not without limitations. For example when I play NHL 12 online I have to turn the internet off on my laptop to prevent lag. I rarely get problems with Netflix and Hulu but sometimes it's hard to get above their "Medium SD" quality.

Hmm, interesting how just a laptop can affect lag. Perhaps it is screwing with the latency somehow or it is a QoS issue.