[krae_man]

Those caps seem reasonable comparred to what I have. That's what getting ripped off does to you. Fucking CRTC :(

[claviertekky]

Well actually hd is free. Every box is hd with them now I believe. The price hike never happens, because they are always running this special and you can just resign up for it again. Taxes are unavoidable on any provider. I'm no fan of Time Warner, but fair is fair. I'm sure atleast they would give me a wireless n router unlike Verizon who won't replace the G one I have that is 3 years old.

The box is free?

Ok. As much as I hate Time Warner, I had to dig through another city to find to make sure it's true. I know my local cable company and others do charge this fee.

It says HD Digital Receiver: $8.85 a month.

$9.99 for each additional one.

The DVR Service fee is: $11.00 a month.

Sure, it may seem like a deal at first, but later, you'll become used to it that you probably will justify the price hike from your trial.

I know people who do this and in the end they end up paying more in the end because dealing with customer service is a nightmare.

My point is that the cable companies advertising the $89, $99 bundle is really deceiving. You're not paying that price. When I had AT&T DSL, they said $40, I paid $40 flat.

[Gravijah]

This is fucking bullshit. AT&T is such a shitty fucking company.

[Futureman]

I won't have a problem like 98% of people, but I am against caps due to principle. unfortunetly, in Georgia, it's AT&T or Comcast. pick your poison, die a painful death

Yea this fucking amazing high speed internet! Giving me crisp, clear streaming video, access to millions of websites/internet services! DAMN, dying a painful 21st century death here.

"BUT FUTUREMAN, THE VERY INTERNET YOU SPEAK OF IS AT STAKE HERE! THERE WILL BE NO MORE INTERNET WITH THE EVIL COMCAST RUNNING THINGS!"

OMG I KNOW! Not sure how I'm going to give up my 2 large Big Mac meals per month to pay for my overage fees.

I really don't think you internet avengers have much of an argument when it seems like the only way you legally go over 250GB per month is by doing something insane like watch 5 hours of HD Netflix per day.

[Vilix]

Just curious...say I watch 4-6 movies a month on Netflix streaming + maybe some pandora and GAF every day? How many GB is that? Best guesstimate.

Dunno. You may want to call your ISP and ask what your internet usage has been a month for the past 3 months.

[threenote]

Cell phone providers and Obama stated it as well in the State of the Union that they want to look at wireless broadband to put the US back as a leader in Internet services. If you don't know about it already, there are caps on the wireless broadband end of things as well.

Obama is a bunch of talk. Don't count on any of that.

[Calcaneus]

I watch a lot of streaming Netflix and Hulu + every month, and i've never heard a peep from Comcast about going over. 250GB has been fine for me for a while.

Same here, sometimes we would have two laptops and the PS3 all using netflix at some point during the day. I'm still against this on principle, but it really hasn't affected me yet.

[Neki]

The U.S is starting to join in on the good times regarding internet caps. Canada welcomes you!

[Burger]

A "heavy" user today is a "normal" user in a couple of years based on conservative estimates of Internet usage by companies like Cisco.

Obviously.

[Draft]

The thing is that no cap is reasonable because total bandwidth transferred is not what taxes an ISP. Their problem is congestion. It's all those Facebookers and Netflixers using the internet from 5 to 9 Monday through Friday.

The reason they focus on caps is that the audience affected is small and not exactly easy to sympathize with. Oh, poor babies, this is really going to put a crimp in your torrenting of How I met your Mother in HD.

Of course, the thing to remember is that caps are just the beginning. Monetization can never be satisfied. There's always some thing the customer is currently enjoying for free that they could be paying for.

That's why you need to fight them every step of the way. Don't give an inch. Even if the current monetization has no impact on your internet usage, who knows what the next one will be, or the one after that.

[BoboBrazil]

The box is free? Ok. As much as I hate Time Warner, I had to dig through another city to find to make sure it's true. I know my local cable company and others do charge this fee. It says HD Digital Reciever: $8.85 a month. $9.99 for each additional one. The DVR Service fee is: $11.00 a month. I know people who do this and in the end they end up paying more in the end because dealing with customer service is a nightmare.

Just looked again and I guess you are right although it shows the hd dvr service is $7.99 a month here, but they give you 6 months free. Oh well. For strictly internet the prices are damn good with road runner.

[From The Dust]

This is fucking bullshit. AT&T is such a shitty fucking company.

too bad there isn't a better alternative around here. just ass fuckers >_<

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

I switched to Comcast in October and I was worried about their 250gb cap. So I watched my usage but did not change my behavior for a few months to see. I use 100-150GB so I am comfortably under. And that's between Netflix and virtually all PSN demos and stuff, Steam games, and regular use. So far this month I used 75gb. I think 120 is low, but 250 is a reasonable amount for a home to use in a month.

So you'd be fucked if you were in a house shared with 4 people that all used the Internet just as much as you.

[claviertekky]

Just looked again and I guess you are right although it shows the hd dvr service is $7.99 a month here, but they give you 6 months free. Oh well. For strictly internet the prices are damn good with road runner.

Yeah sorry, I don't mean to grill you. Just checking the facts.

[Gravijah]

too bad there isn't a better alternative around here. just ass fuckers >_<

I don't really think I have many other options around here, either... Argh.

Edit: What should I use to keep track of my bandwidth, anyway?

[WickedAngel]

Obviously.

If it was obvious, you'd understand exactly why some of us want to fight this tooth and nail.

Unfortunately, it isn't obvious. The fact that it isn't obvious is exactly why they're getting away with it; the average consumer doesn't burden themselves with knowledge of trending and they'll be the ones hurt the worst by sticker shock when they stumble onto the next YouTube 3 years from now and eat up their bandwidth allotment in a week. Unfortunately, the fight will already be over by then.

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Just curious...say I watch 4-6 movies a month on Netflix streaming + maybe some pandora and GAF every day? How many GB is that? Best guesstimate.

Beyond just how stupid the caps are, this is the next best argument against it.

How many Internets is a few Netflix movies and streaming music? No one knows. All you can do is watch a meter on your billing page fill up and wonder how to best not fill it up to the top before the month is over. It's impossible to educate the consumer on this. It's just getting fucked and taking it because you will.

[br0ken_shad0w]

Almost every argument for caps can easily be counted, so I won't even bother. The funny part of people posting their "usages" is that they think 250gb is the standard and that they think they are the only ones in their homes that use the internet.

Next, they'll be an argument that caps relieve congestion (hint: it doesn't).

[Neki]

Yeah, 250GB by yourself is sometimes hard to get, but when your whole family knows how to use their computers and are constantly streaming (YouTube, Netflix, movies) then it's so very easy to hit the cap.

[ollin]

Checks my transfer cap in utorrent for the last 30 days.
Uploaded: 767 Gb
Downloaded 362 GB
Total 1.1 TB

I'm guessing AT&T wouldn't want me to be one of their subscribers.

[BoboBrazil]

May 3rd=ATT announces new unlimited cap pricing at $119.99 per month lol.

[Marty Chinn]

Are you currently using it? If so, how is it?

Sonic.net is amazing from everything I read. The CEO is open and accessible on forums to talk about the service. It's really good if you're close to a box cuz you can get great speeds with ADSL2. I really would have gone had ADSL2 been available to me.

[LyleLanley]

This is ridiculous, 250gb isn't that much when you consider how many movies people are downloading via netflix/xbox live/psn/etc. along with game downloads from all the consoles.

[Kraftwerk]

Oh and hey Kraftwerk, quoting peoples avatars is not smart, or clever, or adds anything to the discussion. If you want to call somebody an idiot, or make some clever counterpoint, don't be a fucking pussy about it.

Being a pussy about it? Oh, i guess if I call you out, you will pop out of my monitor then beat me. Yes, that is why i am being a pussy.

I meant no insult to you, it's just that what you said was very simple-minded...to put it nicely.

I use my net for netflix, radio, youtube, downloads and much more. That's JUST me. Two other people in my household stream a lot too.

As other's have pointed out, there are a lot of consumers like you ( no offense) who don't educate themselves on this matter, thus in the end people like me suffer.

[Heysoos]

Road Runner doesn't have caps does it?

[Alphahawk]

Instead of punishing regular users who are doing nothing wrong, they should just punish people who are torrenting. I have no problem with isp's blocking access to torrent sites or fining people who go on them. People will claim invasion of privacy and stuff but it's a much better alternative than this...

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Instead of punishing regular users who are doing nothing wrong, they should just punish people who are torrenting. I have no problem with isp's blocking access to torrent sites or fining people who go on them. People will claim invasion of privacy and stuff but it's a much better alternative than this...

No it's not. That's much fucking worse.

I will never defend pirating material, but I will defend everyone's right to use the Internet without their Internet Service Provider monitoring what we're doing on the Internet. Are you fucking serious?

[Neki]

Instead of punishing regular users who are doing nothing wrong, they should just punish people who are torrenting. I have no problem with isp's blocking access to torrent sites or fining people who go on them. People will claim invasion of privacy and stuff but it's a much better alternative than this...

Why do you think torrenting is the issue here?

[WickedAngel]

Instead of punishing regular users who are doing nothing wrong, they should just punish people who are torrenting. I have no problem with isp's blocking access to torrent sites or fining people who go on them. People will claim invasion of privacy and stuff but it's a much better alternative than this...

Allowing them to decide what services are naughty and nice will surely solve the problem.

For the record, I just got finished downloading 3GB of legal material for work (Microsoft Office Home/Business for a client installation tomorrow, plethora of VM modules I need to test on our new server).

[LyleLanley]

Instead of punishing regular users who are doing nothing wrong, they should just punish people who are torrenting. I have no problem with isp's blocking access to torrent sites or fining people who go on them. People will claim invasion of privacy and stuff but it's a much better alternative than this...

ISPs shouldn't be allowed to decide what websites people can and can't go to. As far as torrent sites in general, there are plenty of torrents out there that aren't of the illegal variety.

[Marty Chinn]

May 3rd=ATT announces new unlimited cap pricing at $119.99 per month lol.

Screw that if that was the case. You can get comcast business cable installed for $100 a month unlimited. I was very tempted since I'm against caps, but then AT&T advertised $50 a month for 18-24mbps with no cap and I jumped on it to get installed tomorrow. I'm pretty pissed about this cuz I looked long and hard at my alternatives.

[Ceebs]

Instead of punishing regular users who are doing nothing wrong, they should just punish people who are torrenting. I have no problem with isp's blocking access to torrent sites or fining people who go on them. People will claim invasion of privacy and stuff but it's a much better alternative than this...

How do you differentiate between legitimate torrent and use illegal torrent use? So yeah that a terrible idea.

[BoboBrazil]

If I pay for my internet connection I should be able to do whatever I want with it. They need to stay out of my business.

[Barkley's Justice]

it won't stop, people. everything will become "online". the future isnt about fucking online video. it's about EVERYTHING.

someone needs to put these dudes in check.

[Futureman]

There are rumors that Apple wants to start offering 24-bit songs in iTunes. You guys are silly if you think the Apples/Netflixes/Googles of the world that have a business model based on you using lots of bandwidth will just sit back and let the telecoms stomp on us. There will be a balance and it will work itself out in my view.

I think ISPs will start making it very easy to see how much bandwidth you use. If you are that confused over it, you will be able to stream your movie on Netflix and see the meter go. This is inconvient, but I think some kind of balance needs to be struck between people using Wikipedia and email most of the time, and people streaming 5 hours of HD Netflix per day.

[Burger]

If it was obvious, you'd understand exactly why some of us want to fight this tooth and nail. Unfortunately, it isn't obvious. The fact that it isn't obvious is exactly why they're getting away with it; the average consumer doesn't burden themselves with knowledge of trending and they'll be the ones hurt the worst by sticker shock when they stumble onto the next YouTube 3 years from now and eat up their bandwidth allotment in a week. Unfortunately, the fight will already be over by then.

I understand that if a ISP sells their internet as unlimited, then it should be just that.

Otherwise it should be advertised with caps.

Here in New Zealand, you can be paying around $50 US for 40GB of ADSL2 residential internet. My flat (of 4 internet users) pays about $60 US for 15MB cable, capped at 80GB p/m.

Pretty much every ISP in this country has had to reverse on unlimited internet, because the demand is insatiable. Then you get those top 2-5% of users who literally fuck it for everyone else, running seed boxes or whatever else that's gobbling up internet all day.

[quadriplegicjon]

If you are using 250GB a month then you are probably doing things you shouldn't be doing. Either that or you have a large family who are all seriously using mad internets.

There isn't much of an issue now for legit users.. but what happens once on-demand streaming becomes more prominent and with higher resolution?

[ivedoneyourmom]

Data Caps: The Data Providers solution to solving the problems of innovation and technological advancement on the Internet.

[WickedAngel]

There are rumors that Apple wants to start offering 24-bit songs in iTunes. You guys are silly if you think the Apples/Netflixes/Googles of the world that have a business model based on you using lots of bandwidth will just sit back and let the telecoms stomp on us. There will be a balance and it will work itself out in my view. I think ISPs will start making it very easy to see how much bandwidth you use. If you are that confuses over it, you will be able to stream your movie on Netflix and see the meter go. This is inconvient, but I think some kind of balance needs to be struck between people using Wikipedia and email most of the time, and people streaming 5 hours of HD Netflix per day.

The balance needs to be struck between the people that know the impact of streaming 5 hours of HD Netflix per day instead of those that don't.

I understand that if a ISP sells their internet as unlimited, then it should be just that. Otherwise it should be advertised with caps. Here in New Zealand, you can be paying around $50 US for 40GB of ADSL2 residential internet. My flat (of 4 internet users) pays about $60 US for 15MB cable, capped at 80GB p/m. Pretty much every ISP in this country has had to reverse on unlimited internet, because the demand is insatiable. Then you get those top 2-5% of users who literally fuck it for everyone else, running seed boxes or whatever else that's gobbling up internet all day.

This.Is.Not.True.

[tedtropy]

Gotta love how "unlimited broadband" went to "oh don't worry, only a such-and-such percentage of our paying customers are evil" practically overnight.

On average I've been hitting about 100GB or so out of my 250GB Comcast cap, but the more HD content I stream, the more this is going to only increase. I'd love to know if Comcast and other ISPs have a floating cap in mind to change with the tim...sorry, couldn't finish typing that without laughing hysterically.

What is it about these companies that they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era? It took the music industry this damn long to finally start embracing digital distribution, when the hell are ISPs going to realize their users thirst for bandwidth and capacity is a cash cow waiting to be tapped (even more)...

"That's what she said" and etc.

[Tobor]

These caps are here, and tiered usage is right behind them, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. I was hoping the FCC would step in, but they didnt. The government isn't going to get us out of this one. Should I stand on the corner and hand out fliers?

The best we can hope for is that the caps are reasonable, the overage charges arent too high, and that as technology advances, they'll be raised. Other than that, we're collectively fucked, as always.

[JdFoX187]

Fuck AT&T. Seriously.

I'm stuck with the piece of shit company because this shithole of a town in this shithole of a state doesn't want to evolve and help improve any infrastructure to advance it into the 21st century. So there's shitty AT&T with their god awful service that drops at least three or four times a day and then there's the shitty cable company with outrageous pricing. So now I'm going to have to switch over to said shitty cable company and pay out the ass just to avoid AT&T trying to gouge their customers.

[claviertekky]

it won't stop, people. everything will become "online". the future isnt about fucking online video. it's about EVERYTHING. someone needs to put these dudes in check.

Everyone's waiting for Google.

If I'm not mistaken, there was a report in North Carolina about a community that put together their very own fiber internet service lines because the cable and ADSL companies did not service there. They bought the equipment and land and sold service to local residents at affordable rates.

Turns out now they're facing lawsuits from the Time Warner and AT&T even though they were not providing service in those areas before. Those two fear the price difference is going to cause outrage from their current customers as this small ISP was starting into expand to other areas.

My thoughts are that the bigger ISPs just want to run these guys out of business so they can inherit that community-made infrastructure at a fraction of a cost in comparison to deploying Internet there themselves.

[True Underdog]

Well shit.

My only two options here are AT&T and Time Warner.

[Burger]

Being a pussy about it? Oh, i guess if I call you out, you will pop out of my monitor then beat me. Yes, that is why i am being a pussy. I meant no insult to you, it's just that what you said was very simple-minded...to put it nicely. I use my net for netflix, radio, youtube, downloads and much more. That's JUST me. Two other people in my household stream a lot too. As other's have pointed out, there are a lot of consumers like you ( no offense) who don't educate themselves on this matter, thus in the end people like me suffer.

Perhaps I didn't word my original statement properly then. I have a different perspective though, I'm not American, I'm used to the NZ cost. $10 for an overage of 50GB? That's a dream where I come from.

[Salmonax]

Caps are evil, although for the moment I seem to be fine with Comcast. On average I seem to use about 20 gigs a month, according to my billing page.

But I don't really Netflix or do much in the way of on-demand video, so I can definitely see how the headroom could quickly vanish if I were to ramp that stuff up.

[titiklabingapat]

Checks my transfer cap in utorrent for the last 30 days. Uploaded: 767 Gb Downloaded 362 GB Total 1.1 TB I'm guessing AT&T wouldn't want me to be one of their subscribers.

How do I check that on my utrroents? Thanks

[Vilix]

Checks my transfer cap in utorrent for the last 30 days. Uploaded: 767 Gb Downloaded 362 GB Total 1.1 TB I'm guessing AT&T wouldn't want me to be one of their subscribers.

The hell are you browsing? 0_o

[Instro]

Road Runner doesn't have caps does it?

Not atm, but they attempted to implement them a couple years back but decided not to go through with it. Id imagine Time Warner would be all for jumping on board the cap bandwagon if it gains steam like this.

Sooner or later these caps will come in direct conflict with the business models of a lot of other large companies and corporations.

[Tobor]

Not atm, but they attempted to implement them a couple years back but decided not to go through with it. Id imagine Time Warner would be all for jumping on board the cap bandwagon if it gains steam like this. Sooner or later these caps will come in direct conflict with the business models of a lot of other large companies and corporations.

Help us Steve Jobs, you're our only hope.