Broadband Limits? Interesting article

[Arvon]

http://msn.com.com/2100-1103_2-50796...24&tag=msnhome

[TX_Chris]

wow that has to suck, if a company can't live up to what they promote they should atleast tell the user how much s/he has exceeded this "limit" and not just keep it from them leaving a warning note behind.
But then again the heavy downloaders out there spend days, weeks even *dare i say* months online, downloading tons of gigs of stuff. So you can understand why the companies have decided to come out with this so called "limit" :\

[Thoran]

They've been talking about this for over a year, but it's not popular and could leave the door open to further DSL market penetration. Funny that even though most of us don't come close to using a gig and a half of bandwidth a day, we bristle at the notion that our ISP might put an artificial limit on our pipes. I admit that I myself did at first, but at this point I think that in order to maintain QOS levels this sort of tactic might be necessary... and I don't want to be paying almost 50 bucks a month just so my neighbor can get his daily Kazaa fix.

[SpiritWarrior]

That's aload of shit! Not the article but the fact that they're now doing this. What about people who host game servers 24/7 like NWN's?

[Firestormalpha]

Interesting, but it won't effect me unless they start charging less for people who don't download as much.

[Harkoliar]

i for one would DEMAND for information in regards to the limit or else im off to another cable company. plain and simple.

[Zero Alpha]

Originally posted by Harkoliar: i for one would DEMAND for information in regards to the limit or else im off to another cable company. plain and simple.

Not only should you demand it, but arnt they obliged to keep you informed of the terms and conditions of the contract you are entered into, especialy if they decide to change them! and if he was told that there was no cap, then to impose one is a misreprisentation of a product. something smells a but fishy here.

[Luvian]

Don't worry about it, it don't affect people doing regular downloading or hosting gaming servers.

It's nothing new around here. My cable contract allow me 15 gigs of download and 10 gigs of upload per months, if I remember right.

I know a guy who hosted a warez server. He was receiving and sending for about 50k per second each for over a year before his isp complained.

Bandwith cost money. You can't expect to be able to download 80 gigs of stuff in a month for your basic price. Even generous webhost don't give you much more than that, and that's for packages costing over 100$ US a month.

About a year ago, I was playing a MMORPG at least 8 hours a day, while downloading tons of stuff, and I never used up all my 15 gig monthly limit.

What I find bad about american companies, is that they don't tell you your limit. They make it look like you have unlimited access, but when you set up a 24/7 file server, they threaten to ban you. I can't blame them, but they could at least admit up front their service is not unlimited, and they should clearly state the limit.

Edit: Do you know what's funny? I have a friend who found a way to abuse his dsl's system to have no limit and higher speed. He's using up a huge shunk of the network by himself. I've seen his stats once, and if I remember well, he had uploaded more than 300 gigs. That wasn't even the end of the month, either. The company know about it, but can do nothing, and can't charge him for it, as it's "legal".

[ 09-25-2003, 04:36 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[wellard]

Originally posted by Luvian: Edit: Do you know what's funny? I have a friend who found a way to abuse his dsl's system to have no limit and higher speed. He's using up a huge shunk of the network by himself. I've seen his stats once, and if I remember well, he had uploaded more than 300 gigs. That wasn't even the end of the month, either. The company know about it, but can do nothing, and can't charge him for it, as it's "legal".

Legal for now Luvian, I bet they are working on curbing it right now [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I find it hard to belive in the USA, where consumer rights appear to be more evolved, That there is no clear set limits or rules. They make the limits *if any* and terms of your conditions VERY clear down here.

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Arvon: http://msn.com.com/2100-1103_2-50796...24&tag=msnhome

Life must be good outside Australia - here capped plans (and speeds) are a fact of life. For example, the draconian plan I'm on with Tel$tra Bigpond is an ADSL 512k/128k plan (upstream/downstream) with 3GB prepaid, $149 per extra GB, uploads and downloads charged, for $121 per month. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

Most providers here will offer prepaid plans of either 3GB, 5GB, 8GB, etc. Any unlimited plans are not unlimited because they are shaped, with your access speed dropping down to dial-up speed the more over the "limit" you go (usually 3-10GB) - also to try and discourage leechers who can use up to 100GB in one sitting and slow the whole network down for everyone else.

I can understand the concept behind a "reasonable" cap on traffic as bandwidth does cost money - as long as the price is reasonable and communicated up front. I'm moving to a 1500/256 plan with 8GB prepaid, $6 per extra GB next week which I think will be more than plenty for my needs. We get access to a usage meter (which is unfortunately never ever right) which supposedly tells us our usage, but often it's our word against theirs.

[ 09-25-2003, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]