[Gospel]

psh, i'll just use Google's patented internet anyway. i hear it's free and all you have to do is drop an ethernet cable down your toilet and Google will handle the rest

[ollin]

How do I check that on my utrroents? Thanks

options > preferences > transfer cap

[ivedoneyourmom]

If people are paying monthly fees, the expenses should be distributed as such:

Repair
Support
Infrastructure enhancement
Advertising
Money for share holders

With data caps and no timeline to showing how they are going to increase those caps it seems like they, rather than improving infrastructure, are pocketing the money.

I think if any company wants to put limits on the use of service they need to show how they are going to raise those limits over time.

These limits might not be bad now, but if they don't grow over time they will stifle the Internet, like what is happening on the mobile phones.

[Draft]

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.

No, it's not inevitable. Be unreasonable.

[Let me in]

This is a conspiracy perpetrated by Big Telecom and Big Movie Industry to cripple digital distribution. It's a win-win.

somewhat serious

[Draft]

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.

Won't be an easy fight, though. Not when the ISPs have the average citizen parroting their talking points as conventional wisdom.

[claviertekky]

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.

Looking into this deeper, I think the company I'm talking about is Fibrant.

http://www.fibrant.com/

Not as cheap as I thought it was, but it is fiber. They are delivering speeds faster than the two other companies at around the same monthly cost.

[OldJadedGamer]

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.

Or you own this and play a lot of games:

[Draft]

Looking into this deeper, I think the company I'm talking about is Fibrant. http://www.fibrant.com/ Not as cheap as I thought it was, but it is fiber. They are delivering speeds faster than the two other companies at around the same rate.

Their internet is cheaper than Verizon FiOS.

[Burger]

Won't be an easy fight, though. Not when the ISPs have the average citizen parroting their talking points as conventional wisdom.

NZ Internet users have been fighting caps for as long as the internet has existed. For us, it's ultimately futile. There are only 2 cables connecting NZ to the internet, one to Australia, and one to Hawaii. The gatekeepers of those backbones ultimately control the price of internet in New Zealand.

I wish Americans luck in their fight.

[BlueTsunami]

The hell are you browsing? 0_o

The Torrent application generally uses a certain percentage of your bandwidth. So it may be moving about 10GBs a day at 240MBs (assuming the PC is on 24 hours a day for 30 days which probably isnt' the case here but people do make torrent boxes that are made to be up constantly... like a server). So its not using the complete bandwidth alloted to you so browsing isn't effected. Though you could probably tweak this so it does impact your webpage loading speed.

[WickedAngel]

NZ Internet users have been fighting caps for as long as the internet has existed. For us, it's ultimately futile. There are only 2 cables connecting NZ to the internet, one to Australia, and one to Hawaii. The gatekeepers of those backbones ultimately control the price of internet in New Zealand. I wish Americans luck in their fight.

You guys seem to get a raw deal with all your media concerns.

[Alphahawk]

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.

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

How is this a worst idea than the altrernative? First of all, I seriously doub that there is a significant percentage of legal torrents out there. Second of all, there are many viable alternatives as to how these legal torrent uploaders can get there work seen. Have a movie? Upload it to youtube. Have a song? Upload it to myspace. Unlike the bandwith cap it's only asking for people to change one aspect of there internet usage as opposed to the whole thing.

[Dreams-Visions]

No, I'm serious. If enough people make noise, there's a possibility of AT & T revoking this policy. I'm not one of them, of course. How anyone could download over 250 GB a month blows my mind.

Imagine a scenario where someone enjoys watching televisions shows. They cancel cable in favor of Netflix and Hulu streamed to their television via TV widget or via some sort of Media Center PC. If they stream shows for the same amount of time they have the TV on and playing (say...4 or 5 hours/day), they will hit their artificial limit. And that's not including just regular internet usage.

[Draft]

NZ Internet users have been fighting caps for as long as the internet has existed. For us, it's ultimately futile. There are only 2 cables connecting NZ to the internet, one to Australia, and one to Hawaii. The gatekeepers of those backbones ultimately control the price of internet in New Zealand. I wish Americans luck in their fight.

Well, again, the amount of data that can move over those "main" pipes is simply obscene. Can't be saturated. All the congestion is in the last mile and due to ISPs providing just enough bandwidth to handle a predicted peak load. If that predictions off, which is often is because they err on the side of cheapness, service slows down.

Have a movie? Upload it to youtube. Have a song? Upload it to myspace.

Oh my fucking God, are you crazy? Jesus :lol

[Burger]

You guys seem to get a raw deal with all your media concerns.

It's not so bad. When access to things like iPlayer, Spotify, Pandora, Netflix, Hulu and all that sort of stuff is unavailable, suddenly your need for GB's goes out the window.

[JLG-]

FUCK YOU AT&T!
I don't have UVerse so my cap will be at 150gb not 250 fucking bullshit!

Does Time Warner have any caps? That is the only other internet service in my area.

[WickedAngel]

How is this a worst idea than the altrernative? First of all, I seriously doub that there is a significant percentage of legal torrents out there. Second of all, there are many viable alternatives as to how these legal torrent uploaders can get there work seen. Have a movie? Upload it to youtube. Have a song? Upload it to myspace. Unlike the bandwith cap it's only asking for people to change one aspect of there internet usage as opposed to the whole thing.

Your entire poorly-constructed argument is based on the flawed assumption that torrent activity accounts for some overwhelming amount of network congestion.

[Alphahawk]

Your entire poorly-constructed argument is based on the flawed assumption that torrent activity accounts for some overwhelming amount of network congestion.

No, my argument is based on the fact that companies are using these caps to stop illegal activity on their networks. Which isn't such a radical thought, as many posters have already brought up this fact already.

[WickedAngel]

No, my argument is based on the fact that companies are using these caps to stopillegal activity on their networks. Which isn't such a radical thought, as many posters have already brought up this fact already.

Wrong again.

[Draft]

Your entire poorly-constructed argument is based on the flawed assumption that torrent activity accounts for some overwhelming amount of network congestion.

To be fair, it probably does. But only because the ISP sells a 20Mb connection and counts on maybe 2-5Mb being used. Then all the sudden here comes BT to just saturate every bit of unused bandwidth.

That's really what irks me about this whole thing, I mean aside from the short sighted greediness. ISPs are trying to weasel out of providing the service they sell. You know, they're more than happy to upsell the 25Mb down to some lady who only wants to update Facebook and download shit from iTunes. But actually using that bandwidth? Oh, now she's a power user and is abusing the connection and ruining the internet experience for all the other customers. It's such bullshit.

[Puddles]

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.

If someone wants to watch 5 hours of HD Netflix a day, that should be their right. That's what they're paying for.

[WickedAngel]

To be fair, it probably does. But only because the ISP sells a 20Mb connection and counts on maybe 2-5Mb being used. Then all the sudden here comes BT to just saturate every bit of unused bandwidth. That's really what irks me about this whole thing, I mean aside from the short sighted greediness. ISPs are trying to weasel out of providing the service they sell. You know, they're more than happy to upsell the 25Mb down to some lady who only wants to update Facebook and download shit from iTunes. But actually using that bandwidth? Oh, now she's a power user and is abusing the connection and ruining the internet experience for all the other customers. It's such bullshit.

I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of network usage on a macro level is already dominated by the video streaming that occurs on the network during peak hours.

A couple of thousand of people seeding torrents 24 hours a day is going to pale in comparison to 100,000 people watching YouTube for a couple of hours. I would imagine that the people who seed that way wouldn't be using the full upload/download capacity of the pipe since it would adversely affect them.

[BlueTsunami]

No, my argument is based on the fact that companies are using these caps to stopillegal activity on their networks. Which isn't such a radical thought, as many posters have already brought up this fact already.

Or these companies are trying to slow down the Digital Distribution movement under the guise that they're attacking those 2% that are illegally downloading things.

[Burger]

If someone wants to watch 5 hours of HD Netflix a day, that should be their right. That's what they're paying for.

Their right? Not if it's in the Terms of Service Agreement.

[ivedoneyourmom]

No, I'm serious. If enough people make noise, there's a possibility of AT & T revoking this policy. I'm not one of them, of course. How anyone could download over 250 GB a month blows my mind.

Yeah, it's really easy - if you are watching NON HD video, to reach 250 GB a month all you have to do is watch ~7 hours a day. If you have an average sized family of 2 children each occasionally doing their own thing, that likely drops it down to about 2~4 hours a day per person - and that excludes any other Internet based activities such as browsing, gaming, downloading, updating software, video chatting, streaming music, buying digital content, etc.

After thinking about it I see that the 250 GB limit is already too small for the average Internet connected family TODAY.

[ClassyPenguin]

AT&T sucks major monkey balls, even without the caps.
I have to use it because they own the lines out here, or else I would have gone with fios.

we have four people in our apartment, so I could see hitting the quota pretty fast.

[lunarworks]

150GB cap?

$10 per 50GB over?

As a Canadian, I'm actually jealous.

[U2NUMB]

This will be a nightmare for anyone who has to VPN into work from home. I worked 8 hours a day from home connecting and controlling a computer on the other side of the country and I tracked it averaged a gig an hour. Luckily Cox has never said a thing to me even though they post "limits" on their website.

[Gattsu25]

If you are using 250GB a month then you are probably doing things you shouldn't be doing.

I came very close to that when I redownloaded my Steam library.

[BlazeDSM]

AT&T sucks major monkey balls, even without the caps. I have to use it because they own the lines out here, or else I would have gone with fios. we have four people in our apartment, so I could see hitting the quota pretty fast.

I agree. My buddy in Chicago works for Comcast and he hasn't mentioned this at all. I hope no one else follows this structure.

[JLG-]

No, I'm serious. If enough people make noise, there's a possibility of AT & T revoking this policy. I'm not one of them, of course. How anyone could download over 250 GB a month blows my mind.

You assume that everyone that has At&t also have Uverse.. I don't so my cap will be at 150gb.

[quadriplegicjon]

No, my argument is based on the fact that companies are using these caps to stopillegal activity on their networks. Which isn't such a radical thought, as many posters have already brought up this fact already.

Not really, that is there excuse, but it is painfully obvious that they see the current trend in digital distribution, and want to get an extra piece of the pie. They set this shit up now, when most people aren't that affected and are just complacent, and then bam... 'looks like you have passed your download limit, why don't you signed up for our media services which don't count towards your download limit!'

[hateradio]

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.

I'm sure the 2% of seedboxers are the reason NZ's internet sucks.

Seedboxes? Really? New Zeland? :lol

Well, actually, I guess your caps are so low that it would be impossible for anyone who is somehow seedboxing to not got over the bandwidth cap. NVM.

It's not so bad. When access to things like iPlayer, Spotify, Pandora, Netflix, Hulu and all that sort of stuff is unavailable, suddenly your need for GB's goes out the window.

Now I'm :(.

Your entire poorly-constructed argument is based on the flawed assumption that torrent activity accounts for some overwhelming amount of network congestion.

Well, most ISPs have actually stopped providing Usenet access, so there is some precedent to blocking service, although it's still accessible. However, if they were to block the torrent protocol, another would just be made or access could still be provided.

No, my argument is based on the fact that companies are using these caps to stopillegal activity on their networks. Which isn't such a radical thought, as many posters have already brought up this fact already.

What fact? There are facts by random, expert neogaf posters on illegal activity?


ATT: Only 2% of our consumers use 150 or 250 GBs. (We didn't even state which!)
Person: Torrents must account for a large volume of data so those people are to blame for caps. Caps will stop piracy.

ATT never once stated anything about piracy; the caps are not against piracy, are not against BitTorrent, and are not going to stop either.

[gcubed]

Your entire poorly-constructed argument is based on the flawed assumption that torrent activity accounts for some overwhelming amount of network congestion.

It recently dropped to #2

[LyleLanley]

How is this a worst idea than the altrernative? First of all, I seriously doub that there is a significant percentage of legal torrents out there. Second of all, there are many viable alternatives as to how these legal torrent uploaders can get there work seen. Have a movie? Upload it to youtube. Have a song? Upload it to myspace. Unlike the bandwith cap it's only asking for people to change one aspect of there internet usage as opposed to the whole thing.

I'm not sure you know what makes torrents so useful, regardless in your scenario what about games like WOW and other MMOs that distribute updates via torrents to reduce strain on their servers?

[The_Inquisitor]

I came very close to that when I redownloaded my Steam library.

Lol mine is over 500 GB now. For an average single user maybe 250gb is enough. But I can't even imagine that for a large family.

[Like the hat?]

Comcast will just mess with your upload if they think you're up to shit. Also where I am the whole neighborhood is on one block, or whatever the terminology is.

for me my comcast connection just seems to drop right when I'm in the middle of downloading anything over about a gig (such as a game on Steam). Of course calls to them lead to them saying that they don't have any idea why it dropped, because there is nothing on their end. Yet my connection never drops if I'm not downloading over a certain amount in a day. I don't download a ton of stuff, but like for example when I rented a movie on my PS3 a while back (before netflix), it was like 6gb for the HD version, and it took me almost 4 days to download it because of constant drops. I wouldn't have cared that much, but I have a VOIP plan, so when my net connection drops, so does my phone.

[Zhengi]

Oh god, no... man, I hope there are some other alternatives here. Freaking AT&T.

[Alphahawk]

Not really, that is there excuse, but it is painfully obvious that they see the current trend in digital distribution, and want to get an extra piece of the pie. They set this shit up now, when most people aren't that affected and are just complacent, and then bam... 'looks like you have passed your download limit, why don't you signed up for our media services which don't count towards your download limit!'

Wait you can sign up for services that wouldn't count twoards your limit?

[quadriplegicjon]

I agree. My buddy in Chicago works for Comcast and he hasn't mentioned this at all. I hope no one else follows this structure.

I have Comcast in Chicago, I think they already have a cap set up. When I log into my settings, it says 39GB out of 250GB.

[Aselith]

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.

Hey, did you ever think that not everyone is a childless forever alone?

One person watching 5 hours of streaming content but what about say 4 people all doing their own thing on their own computer. Or a mom and dad watching a movie and then their kids watching a movie. Or all four of them watching tons of youtube videos and streaming Pandora and also watching movies and downloading games and demos and videos and watching streaming content and talking on Skype and patching programs and patching games playing games online and conferencing with work and doing correspondence school so they watch streaming video of their professor lecturing.

[quadriplegicjon]

Wait you can sign up for services that wouldn't count twoards your limit?

Not that I am aware of, I just assume that that is what they are going to end up doing in order to combat Netflix and whatnot. Either way, they are trying to milk more money out of people, and it won't be readily apparent until digital distributions become even more prominent and with larger file sizes.

[Burger]

I'm sure the 2% of seedboxers are the reason NZ's internet sucks. Seedboxes? Really? New Zeland? :lol Well, actually, I guess your caps are so low that it would be impossible for anyone who is somehow seedboxing to not got over the bandwidth cap. NVM.

Seriously, about 10 years ago the European company Chello came onto the scene and offered unlimited internet at 0.5Mb/s, which was way faster than any ASDL at the time, nobody else did unlimited anything, so it was quite big news. Cost a small fortune, but our flat got in and it lasted about 6 months before they said "FUCK THIS!" and left.

Then a year or two ago Telecom offered their unlimited 'Go Large' plan, until the torrenters went absolutely mental and they had to shut the whole thing down and start handing out refunds.

[BoboBrazil]

Not that I am aware of, I just assume that that is what they are going to end up doing in order to combat Netflix and whatnot. Either way, they are trying to milk more money out of people, and it won't be readily apparent until digital distributions become even more prominent and with larger file sizes.

Like that's going to work. Who in their right mind pays 8-10 dollars to watch a hd movie on On Demand ppv?

[Nafai1123]

Anyone in the Bay Area really should check and see if they are capable of getting Sonic.net Fusion service. You get....

Phone with unlimited local/long distance
ADSL2+ internet with up to 20Mbps download

$39.95. No introductory price, contract, month-to-month

You can also get a bonded line with up to 40Mbps download for $69.95.

I have recently started working there, and it really is an amazing company. They treat their employees very well and pride themselves on customer support. If you like supporting smaller homegrown businesses, check it out.

Oh, and did I mention we don't have caps? :D

[gcubed]

Like that's going to work. Who in their right mind pays 8-10 dollars to watch a hd movie on On Demand ppv?

Streaming things through comcasts xfinitytv service doesn't count against your cap... so there are things

[ivedoneyourmom]

Wait you can sign up for services that wouldn't count twoards your limit?

There is a push for it, we need to be against it, and that's what the Net Neutrality is about. If companies say that data A is different than data B then the Internet will be fucked.

gcubed: Really? Shouldn't that be illegal?

[Angelus Errare]

*cracks open Korean language book*

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

[Vilix]

Imagine a scenario where someone enjoys watching televisions shows. They cancel cable in favor of Netflix and Hulu streamed to their television via TV widget or via some sort of Media Center PC. If they stream shows for the same amount of time they have the TV on and playing (say...4 or 5 hours/day), they will hit their artificial limit. And that's not including just regular internet usage.

You just described the set up in my household. Since me, or my family, don't follow sports that closely we haven't had a use for cable for 5 years. We watch Netflix. and stream the major cable news channels from Justin.tv into our sets. What we don't get from that we get over the air. We are the only house in my neighborhood that has an antenna on it's roof. I pay no more than $60 a month for all the stuff we watch. And the great thing about Netflix is there are no commercials. Unlike cable.