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For many years in the early aughts, broadband providers insisted they needed to impose usage caps and costly overage fees to help manage network congestion. By 2015, leaked documents from Comcast revealed that was never true. In the years since, even industry CEOs have acknowledged that the limits are little more than an additional tax on captive customers in uncompetitive U.S. broadband markets.
As COVID-19 struck, ISPs quickly bowed to pressure to eliminate such restrictions so home-bound Americans weren't inundated with significantly higher bills. In a press release, Comcast makes it clear that its network has (gasp), performed perfectly well under the added load -- despite a 32% increase in upstream traffic and 18% increase in downstream traffic. There's been a 77% surge in gaming downloads, a 37% bump in streaming video consumption, and a 228% bump in VOIP and teleconferencing use. This is, Comcast says, causing no issues for Comcast:
"Our ongoing, proactive network investment to add fiber and capacity has put us in a good position to manage the increases that we are experiencing today. While the COVID-19 experience is new and unprecedented, the Internet ecosystem is flexible and performing the way it was designed. We engineer the network to handle spikes and shifts in usage, and what we have seen so far with COVID-19 is within our capacity."
Many ISPs, like Comcast, backed off the "congestion" claims a few years ago after their own memos, and numerous researchers and journalists, kept debunking them.
(Score: 3, Touché) by gtomorrow on Tuesday April 28 2020, @09:00PM (14 children)
"We're shocked...and stunned."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @09:34PM (12 children)
Can't wait for lockdown to end and all the lies continue unabated. Anyone else annoyed by the $10 service charge from telcos just to be allowed to tether your laptop to phone and use the data you already pay for?
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:01PM (5 children)
Have you not been paying attention, friend? What have any of your grievances have to do with "lockdown"? It's just now that "the man behind the curtain" has been unequivically and undeniably revealed. Are you really surprised?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:16PM (4 children)
No, I was sarcastically saying (sorry forgot the /s) that I can't wait for the lockdown to end and all these unequivocal and undeniable truths get swept back under the rug. We are seeing the cracks in our system, the corruption of the magic market forces, and I'm worried we'll just go back to business as normal where corporations get to continue extracting all the profit while squeezing the average person as hard as they can.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @01:13AM (3 children)
Friend, if only you'd bundle phone tether with a landline and sport channel package you'd save thousands. Innovation is alive and well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:08AM (2 children)
Mate, you wouldn't believe the amount of money I haven't saved. Can't stand innovation myself, more of an old testament type really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @07:11AM (1 child)
Well friend there's Good News! A bundle package full of innovative sports channel and landline options. I can't wait to tell you about it. Friend? Are you there?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday April 29 2020, @11:36PM
Blessed are the patient- he's chiseling away on the stone tablets.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:07PM (5 children)
yes, the tethering really bothers me too. in some areas it's my only option for internet access. I hear custom firmware on android can get you tethering? I might look into doing that soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:12PM (4 children)
I had a flashed phone, worked fine up until the telco managed to put a barrier in that required using their shitty app. There must be a way to fool the system so it doesn't realize it isn't your phone making the requests.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @10:30PM (3 children)
ssh tunnel? In my case I use tmobile and I don't have any problems with tethering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @01:32AM (2 children)
Well, let's see what happens after they are done their merger.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @03:12AM (1 child)
Merger? It's more like sie germans taking over. Nice surprises may happen (if you are not Comcast)
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @05:11AM
Not scary any more, they've got stricter rules than US about Nazis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2020, @12:19AM
They wasted money. I’ve building the network. You want to be at least 10% behind the curve. Then build what WAS needed. How are ghrr err y making money???
Signed AT&T