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Coronavirus could force ISPs to abandon data caps forever
The coronavirus threat and official policies of "social distancing" are leading millions to stay home, doing meetings via video chat and probably watching Netflix and YouTube the rest of the time. That means a big uptick in bytes going through the tubes, both simultaneously and cumulatively.
ISPs, leery of repeating Verizon's memorable gaffe of cutting off service during an emergency, are proposing a variety of user-friendly changes to their policies. Comcast is boosting the bandwidth of its low-income Internet Essentials customers to levels that actually qualify as broadband under FCC rules. AT&T is suspending data caps for all its customers until further notice.
[ . . . ] There are two simple truths at play here.
The first is that any company that sends its subscriber a $150 overage fee because they had to work from home for a month and ran over their data cap is going to be radioactive. The optics on that are so bad that my guess is most companies are quietly setting forgiveness policies in place to prevent it from happening — though of course it probably will anyway.
The second is that these caps are completely unnecessary, existing only as a way to squeeze more money from subscribers. Data caps just don't matter any more.
Off with their... caps?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 14 2020, @02:02PM (3 children)
My local ISP lets me run my gigabit pipe completely full 24/7/365 if I want for the same price (like $59/mo or so) as if I never use it. They may be a bunch of eco-hippies but they're doing capitalism like a boss; pretty much nobody in town uses any of the big name ISPs, despite some serious advertising campaigns.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @01:30AM (2 children)
That's crazy. We pay WAY more than that and we get 130 Mb/sec by ... is it like 12 or 15 Mb/sec where I live? Well we have cable as well and they bundle in a LAN line that we never really use. Then again I'm not really complaining to be honest, it's not like I really need all that bandwidth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @01:32AM
Sorry, I meant to say landline telephone service
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 15 2020, @03:12AM
Yup, them hippies may blow company money on an all electric fleet and charging stations (and for some reason even use that as a marketing point) but when you got all of the business because you offer badass value and service, apparently you can afford to do things like that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.