Austin Internet Question, RE: TW is capping internet bandwidth in Austin.

[Cheddar]

Yes, I do work for Verizon (FiOS).  And we have 24/7 support.

[schild]

Can you check on Austin? My address still doesn't even register but DSL reports says there's some pins like a mile from me.

[Sky]

Roll that shit down my road while you're at it.

Schild, you're funny with your nearby pin. Time Warner refuses to run cable 400 ft down my mothers road for three houses, claiming it would cost $1000 to do so. 3 times cable + rr + phone times 20+ years (ok, less for phone + rr, but still). It's like they'd rather squeeze money without doing any actual work, even when that little bit of effort would earn them more money for nothing down the road. Sheesh.

[Salamok]

Can i set up LoS repeaters from my work to home!

[Tale]

Just a question, but I use my computer to play games, surf the net, and watch a few TV shows a week on hulu/megavideo etc.  I don't know how much bandwidth that takes.

Are the people in danger of hitting proposed caps downloading thousands of songs a month and calculating missile trajectories for the DOD, or are the standards low enough to catch the average MMO gamer/young Internet user? 

Game playing, netsurfing, and downloading music are irrelevant. None of those consume significant bandwidth (unless all your music is lossless FLAC or something). There are basically three things that will fuck you: downloading video, downloading full game clients, and streaming video (watching lots of YouTube or streamed TV).

I live off 25 gigs a month (used to live off 10 gigs). Here's my ISP's pricing scheme in AUD: clicky link. My ISP also has "data blocks" you can buy for a one-off increase: clicky link. My ISP also has free zones, where you can download terabytes to your heart's content and it won't count. These include a vast up-to-date library of full game clients and patches, local servers for popular games, a full Majorgeeks mirror, and everything from the servers of our BBC-equivalent, the ABC. My ISP's usenet server is a direct line to Giganews, at no charge, but downloads from it count towards your monthly cap.

Edit - Oh and they also have a Steam mirror. All Steam downloads are unmetered So limits suck, but I can live with my 25Gb. If not, I buy data blocks. That happened last month when I woke up to discover the LOTRO trial patcher had silently downloaded 10Gb overnight. 

The community came up with a neat little tray app:

[stray]

AT&T is probably going to benefit from this. And when they see how much Time Warner has been fucked, they won't be thinking about caps themselves.

I'll probably sign up around June, just to tie it with my current mobile contract with Sprint expiring.

[edit] There are a lot of legitimate things people do with their internet time that'll be affected by this, so I'm not sure what they're trying to prove here. 40GB is insane.. at least the way current trends are moving (and Tale's defense of 25GB is just goofy). Game consoles alone offer downloadable demos all within the 1 or 2GB range. Downloadable movies on PSN/XBL/AppleTV etc get big. Music, either downloadable or streaming can stack up eventually. Even shit like distance education can push you into GB territory. Uploading/Downloading HQ photos, let alone watching Youtube streams as mentioned above. Sharing movies. Perhaps even running some small business related shit gets affected. Downloading software in general. Uploading to backup sites. And finally, Porn. Yes. Good ole porn, staple of the net. Smutty, but still a legit use of internet time. But most importantly, multiple people in a household could be using their time doing all of these things.

[Trippy]

Don't count on it. AT&T is testing bandwidth caps in Texas now too after their initial trial in Nevada. Their caps vary depending on the max bandwidth you are paying for with the 6 Mbps connections having a cap of 150 GB/month. It's kind of amusing that "big bad Comcast" is going to end up being the one with the most generous caps after all this is said and done.

[stray]

Actually, speaking of movie services, perhaps there is a conflict of interest involved here. I mean, they are a media company. Maybe they're trying to get as much cash out of the idea of movie delivery as they can.. even in indirect ways. Or maybe they're just plain trying to rake in cash... as wealthy entities seem to like doing anyhow.

[Tale]

40GB is insane.. at least the way current trends are moving (and Tale's defense of 25GB is just goofy).

I didn't mean to defend it. I hate it. I was showing how I live within it, for when it happens to you.

[stray]

Ah, I see. :)

[Ookii]

It's insane to me that AT&T sees their competition put caps in place and they decide to do the exact same thing.  Starting in the same place and around the same time as their competition as well.

Seems a bit fishy to me.  I bet all of these guys are golfing buddies.

[Cheddar]

Can you check on Austin? My address still doesn't even register but DSL reports says there's some pins like a mile from me.

Message me your address and I will check it out. 

I did the same for Trippy; unfortunately the answer was not good.

[schild]

Done.

[Cheddar]

Will check it out on Monday.  My bro is in town and I am under orders not to even think about work!

If its not avail yet I will get ahold of Engineering there and see when/if it is gonna get deployed.

[schild]

I honestly have no clue why they haven't expanded into Austin yet. What with it being tech fucking central and their only real competition being TW which is universally despised - even more so now. Seems like quite the opportunity.

[Xerapis]

I love Korea.

I mentioned this issue to one of my students who works for SK Networks. It was actually difficult to explain the concept of a download cap even though his English is quite good. When he finally understood, he said "Why would we ever do that? We would lose all of our customers."

[Cheddar]

I honestly have no clue why they haven't expanded into Austin yet. What with it being tech fucking central and their only real competition being TW which is universally despised - even more so now. Seems like quite the opportunity.

Generally its due to franchise agreements (we sorta stopped spreading in none cable optional areas due to cost).  When we do roll into areas its... not good for the competition.

Cannot really say more, but its interesting some of the tactics adopted by our competitors.  Does not seem to hurt our market penetration, though.   

[Ozzu]

No TW caps where I live yet (suburbs of Dallas), but it's only a matter of time. Before my last move, we had FIOS and we literally moved to an apt complex across the street and it's no longer available. I was 

[UnSub]

40GB is insane.. at least the way current trends are moving (and Tale's defense of 25GB is just goofy).

I didn't mean to defend it. I hate it. I was showing how I live within it, for when it happens to you.

I have a 20GB cap as well - different ISP (Optus).

Arguably it is because a pseudo-private organisation controls almost all the internet backbone in Australia and sets the prices to less than customer friendly levels, then resells to other ISPs.

On the other hand, "pay for what you use" or fixed plans are pretty standard in lots of industries. But then I've lived with it, so it's what I know.

[Strazos]

Comcast gave me a courtsey call yesterday, asking how I felt about the service and how it could be improved.

I just told them more speed, get rid of the 250gb cap, and don't do packet shaping because there's perfectly legitimate uses for torrenting.

I've been using BitMeter for the for almost a year now (set to launch at start-up so it doesn't miss anything). The most I've used is 30gb, and that happened to have been last month.

I don't do NEARLY as much torrenting as I did back in 07 or 06, and I don't use youtube or hulu a whole lot.

[Tale]

usenet > torrents

[Salamok]

usenet > torrents

TWC shut theirs down it used to be pretty good.

[Cheddar]

I am trying to get my brother backup copies of some of the stuff I have (series/movies) to take back to Iraq, but cannot seem to get it right. 

I am epic fail  :(

[Salamok]

Someone givin it to a road runner rep I like how they use the granny defense on how poor lil ol' grandma shouldn't have to pay for your internet abuse (of course they aren't actually dropping any prices so instead she just gives her money to TWC).  Can someone run the numbers on how much bandwidth is consumed if poor lil ole granny leaves her digital TV on 24/7?  Isn't that a similar cost/consumption of bandwidth on an hourly basis as an internet user grabbing a cached hulu/youtube vid that has been requested a thousand times by other TWC users?

[schild]

Wow, the administrator at the board is an amazing idiot.

Edit: I'm fine with $75 unlimited. Tiered shit makes sense (from an easy economical viewpoint on how to leverage customers in a tangible way), the problem is TWs plans don't make sense. There is no unlimited plan - and it *should* be a decent value, particularly considering competition. And yet, there isn't.

[Salamok]

Also the douchbag admin compares their business model to a webhost selling space/bandwidth on a server in a datacenter, then proceeds to bring up the costs for the various subscriber lines (T3/DS3, OC3, OC48).  Last I looked none of these types of connection has a bandwidth cap (why they are expensive) and a web host is charging for metered bandwidth does so because the data center in which they reside has a T3/DS3, OC3 or OC48 that they are reselling to thousands of clients (why they are cheap).

[Cheddar]

Can someone run the numbers on how much bandwidth is consumed if poor lil ole granny leaves her digital TV on 24/7?  Isn't that a similar cost/consumption of bandwidth on an hourly basis as an internet user grabbing a cached hulu/youtube vid that has been requested a thousand times by other TWC users?

Apples and oranges.  Minus the new AT&T experiment (U Verse) all cable is broadcast based. 

[Trippy]

That Elminst guy is

[Salamok]

That Elminst guy is

I think his job description must be kool aid salesman

[schild]

That Elminst guy is

I think his job description must be kool aid salesman

I want that job.

[naum]

Does this mean net neutrality is now dead?

[Righ]

No, this is a reaction to net neutrality being alive. If net neutrality were dead, the providers wouldn't care about this issue, because they could just levy rates and set packet priorities based upon what you want to access. Want to download movies from a partner business? Full speed ahead. Want to download certain non-profit archives that are easy to mirror? Have a decent rate. Want to download stuff from your own server or some other backwater that providers no compensation to your provider? Enjoy the wait.

[naum]

No, this is a reaction to net neutrality being alive. If net neutrality were dead, the providers wouldn't care about this issue, because they could just levy rates and set packet priorities based upon what you want to access. Want to download movies from a partner business? Full speed ahead. Want to download certain non-profit archives that are easy to mirror? Have a decent rate. Want to download stuff from your own server or some other backwater that providers no compensation to your provider? Enjoy the wait.

It's pretty obvious that this is a telco collaborative response to video downloads — entities that have a vested interest in thwarting (or ensuring that users pay the piper) folks unplugging cable TV and plugging in Netflix boxtops, Boxee, Apple TV, etc.…

…and this is the first salvo in that playbook — then you will see, in addition to tiered service agreements, exclusive deals where "preferred content providers" are discounted (or do not tally against the cap), and general herding to "approved" distributors (to keep the internets safe for the children too!), etc.…

[Broughden]

I honestly have no clue why they haven't expanded into Austin yet. What with it being tech fucking central and their only real competition being TW which is universally despised - even more so now. Seems like quite the opportunity.

Whats happening with Verizon that is so good?

[Trippy]

schild wants their fiber optic service. They actually drag a fiber optic line to your house and install the special equipment needed to connect standard media devices (TV, computer, phone) to it.