American broadband - connections of the free?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › American broadband - connections of the free?

cokemaster

Exited
4937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1089

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#15952 17-Sep-2007 22:29

There is an interesting article about how Comcast has a policy of killing connections that exceed a certain, unknown threshold (this article is clarifying this policy, slashfud article here).

Given that America is one of the 'dream' places often discussed, when it comes to broadband, what are your views on having submarine caps (even if they are quite large)?

webhosting

Loose lips may sink ships - Be smart - Don't post internal/commercially sensitive or confidential information!

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80646 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41030

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#86946 17-Sep-2007 22:40

I think this goes into the same bucket as people claiming mobile data in New Zealand is too expensive and saying operators overseas offer "unlimited" data - until we point out the "fair use" terms (general 1GB or 3GB) limiting how much the "unlimited" actually is...

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

JonC

425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#86979 18-Sep-2007 10:16

I agree that overseas ISPs that oversell their "unlimited" plans actually impose caps by another method, but if you're asking whether I'd rather have plans like those on offer in NZ or those that are on offer by Comcast, I'd go for the latter.

Comcast = $US20 ($NZ30) per month, 8Mbps, "cap" of 30,000 songs (about 90-120GB), free wireless router, modem

So yeah, I'd rather get these "submarine" caps if they come with that sort of deal. Not going to happen in NZ though with the lack of competition and costs of international bandwidth.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9996

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#86981 18-Sep-2007 10:20

"Flat Rate" internet is on it's way out everywhere in the world as more ISP's realise it's an unsustainable model in this day in age with people leaching hundreds of GB of P2P stuff ervery month..

cokemaster

Exited
4937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1089

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#86983 18-Sep-2007 10:29

JonC:
Comcast = $US20 ($NZ30) per month, 8Mbps, "cap" of 30,000 songs (about 90-120GB), free wireless router, modem

Ah but there lies the beauty of it. 30,000 songs is a rather difficult way to convert into pure data, you have bitrates, codecs etc (30,000 midi files anyone?).

It would be much better from a consumer point of view for them to come out and say 'Unreasonable usage is deemed as xxx GB', having them just send a message to a customer saying 'You are using too much, reduce your usage, otherwise we'll snip your tubes for 12 months' is a tad excessive.

And then there was the allegations of traffic shaping/screwing with packets, which were widely discussed on several sites(Comcast denies it though), which would make life harder to use your connection the way you want to.

webhosting

Loose lips may sink ships - Be smart - Don't post internal/commercially sensitive or confidential information!

JonC

425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#86986 18-Sep-2007 10:36

Yeah - it does suck that they hide behind their vague limits. I like seeing how much data I can use per month on my usage meter.

That said, my usage wouldn't get anywhere near their 30,000 songs limit, so I think I'd be happy to agree to that sort of thing. I can see that very heavy users (or flats that share their connection between several people) would want a firm limit, but certainly within the next year or two I don't see the internet applications of sufficient interest to me to make my usage go up that much.

argada

14 posts

Geek

#87025 18-Sep-2007 14:27

That threshold they have over there is not even on the same playing field as the limit we have here.

Sure for our 10gig or 30 gigs it would be handy to have a little quota bar showing %. It matters less when the threshold is hundres of GBs.

I have a friend that was eventually banned from comcast, was downloading 300-500gb per month for years. So he picked another isp and straight back at it.

Bottom line is, they get a better deal.

Lego

Shop now for Lego sets and other gifts (affiliate link).

cokemaster

Exited
4937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1089

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#87035 18-Sep-2007 16:23

However the environment is different over there? Size limitations aside, would you accept an NZ provider cutting your connection because you used too much? But they won't say how much is too much?

webhosting

Loose lips may sink ships - Be smart - Don't post internal/commercially sensitive or confidential information!

JonC

425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#87057 18-Sep-2007 17:45

What Comcast are doing is cutting off accounts that are using an excessive amount of bandwidth. So what they're doing is taking the top x% of users and kicking them out.

I think the biggest issue is the way in which Comcast are kicking their users off - no warning, just immediate account suspension. Now that is a horrible way of dealing with the issue. If they gave warnings and then kicked a user off, I think that would be fine, but without warning - that's awful.