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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @04:14AM (5 children)
A relative's house has Verizon fiber service, including the lowest tier of FiOS internet (they aren't big online users). It's not very fast, barely runs YouTube videos.
Will have to run a speed test when I'm there to see if it's been sped up.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Saturday March 14 2020, @05:58AM (4 children)
The lowest tier FiOS ever had was 25mbit. I have a 100/100 connection for $40 a month without a contract. I could go gigabit for $70 but I'm not pulling down terabytes daily. Service has been great for 10 years and there has been at most 5 minutes of downtime in that span.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @08:16AM (3 children)
You say this like it's a good thing. In Eastern Europe I have a gigabit fiber to my home for less than $9 per month, with real unlimited traffic. I can saturate the bandwidth if I want 24/7 and would not get throttled or cut off. Of course the downside is that I live in Eastern Europe...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @09:22AM (1 child)
Communist! Or, at least, ex-Communist! And you have better broadband that all the still Capitalists in America, where competition provides better solutions that a centralized system ever could, even though something like internet access is a natural monopoly. America is so screwed, but at least they are not Eastern Europe and they still have TMB.
You know, I fail to see the advantage.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Saturday March 14 2020, @03:18PM
It isn't universal, but uncapped gigabit is very much available in the USA. Costs more though.
I was in a training class on economic freedom with a guy from China once. He came to the USA when he was young. Said "I thought back then that the streets would be paved with gold". They weren't of course, but he worked hard and became very successful.
After a while he made a point regarding non-economic advantages and disadvantages: "I like chewing gum", he took the gum he was chewing out of his mouth, held it up, and said "Where I came from, THEY CANE YOU for this. I like it here better." Long and short is that economic freedom may make a country successful, but it won't make it an enjoyable place to live.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday March 16 2020, @05:52PM
Yeah you live in a country where more taxes are collected and services are subsidized by the government.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 14 2020, @04:23AM (2 children)
A theoretical household watching simultaneous 4K Netflix streams 24/7 would likely not even hit 100 Mbps.
If you could hit a constant 100 Mbps, that's about 32 terabytes in a month.
Even if you wanted to torrent at 100 Mbps, you would likely fill all of the HDDs you have pretty quickly.
There will probably be some kind of cap at some of these ISPs, to prevent some individual from using 50-100 TB a month.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by number11 on Saturday March 14 2020, @05:12PM (1 child)
Then it's time for you to do your part and seed.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 14 2020, @08:42PM
tru
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @04:37AM
That driving should cost less than using more bandwidth via teleconferencing and working from home. Driving is certainly far less environmentally friendly so doing things like teleconferencing and working from home instead of driving should be encouraged both economically (ie: it should be cheaper) and environmentally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @06:33AM (2 children)
Many plans are 'unlimited data' - within reason.
Obviously you can't flog it 100% 24/7 but for all intents and normal purposes it's unlimited.
I haven't cared about data limits for 2 decades since DSL became a thing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 14 2020, @06:38AM (1 child)
Unlimited... except you're in Australia trying to connect to the real world.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @01:38PM
Trying?
(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.