Internet Users Ask FCC To Ban Data Caps (arstechnica.com) 41
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's been just a week since US telecom regulators announced a formal inquiry into broadband data caps, and the docket is filling up with comments from users who say they shouldn't have to pay overage charges for using their Internet service. The docket has about 190 comments so far, nearly all from individual broadband customers.
Federal Communications Commission dockets are usually populated with filings from telecom companies, advocacy groups, and other organizations, but some attract comments from individual users of telecom services. The data cap docket probably won't break any records given that the FCC has fielded many millions of comments on net neutrality, but it currently tops the agency's list of most active proceedings based on the number of filings in the past 30 days. "Data caps, especially by providers in markets with no competition, are nothing more than an arbitrary money grab by greedy corporations. They limit and stifle innovation, cause undue stress, and are unnecessary," wrote Lucas Landreth.
"Data caps are as outmoded as long distance telephone fees," wrote Joseph Wilkicki. "At every turn, telecommunications companies seek to extract more revenue from customers for a service that has rapidly become essential to modern life." Pointing to taxpayer subsidies provided to ISPs, Wilkicki wrote that large telecoms "have sought every opportunity to take those funds and not provide the expected broadband rollout that we paid for."
In response to Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington's coffee refill analogy, internet users "Jonathan Mnemonic" and James Carter wrote, "Coffee is not, in fact, internet service." They added: "Cafes are not able to abuse monopolistic practices based on infrastructural strangleholds. To briefly set aside the niceties: the analogy is absurd, and it is borderline offensive to the discerning layperson."
Federal Communications Commission dockets are usually populated with filings from telecom companies, advocacy groups, and other organizations, but some attract comments from individual users of telecom services. The data cap docket probably won't break any records given that the FCC has fielded many millions of comments on net neutrality, but it currently tops the agency's list of most active proceedings based on the number of filings in the past 30 days. "Data caps, especially by providers in markets with no competition, are nothing more than an arbitrary money grab by greedy corporations. They limit and stifle innovation, cause undue stress, and are unnecessary," wrote Lucas Landreth.
"Data caps are as outmoded as long distance telephone fees," wrote Joseph Wilkicki. "At every turn, telecommunications companies seek to extract more revenue from customers for a service that has rapidly become essential to modern life." Pointing to taxpayer subsidies provided to ISPs, Wilkicki wrote that large telecoms "have sought every opportunity to take those funds and not provide the expected broadband rollout that we paid for."
In response to Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington's coffee refill analogy, internet users "Jonathan Mnemonic" and James Carter wrote, "Coffee is not, in fact, internet service." They added: "Cafes are not able to abuse monopolistic practices based on infrastructural strangleholds. To briefly set aside the niceties: the analogy is absurd, and it is borderline offensive to the discerning layperson."
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Why should a low income person who only uses the internet for work, job searches and the like need to pay as much as a wealthy person who streams high-def content to their high bandwidth displays? Why not charge by data use so the wealthy pay more?
First off, the person who only uses the internet “for work” (or even mostly), should be getting most or all of that cost reimbursed by their employer. It implies that internet service is primarily used in support of an employer.
That said, I feel making the low-income struggling student who’s busy streaming their degree into their brain “pay more” than the rich retiree audiobook fan hardly using any data by comparison. (See how easy it is to assume wrongly when only looking at
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Why should anyone pay more than anyone else when the costs to the ISP are the same regardless of how much bandwidth you use?
Details matter. NOT zero additional cost to use. (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know what the cost structure is, but your internet provider needs to eventually negotiate with a 'backbone' provider who connects everybody else (like Level 3). They have 'peering agreements' that say how much everything costs when data is sent/received.
Additional use by one person shouldn't be crazy more expensive to an ISP, but it might not be a rounding error either (less than a penny).
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I don't know what the cost structure is, but your internet provider needs to eventually negotiate with a 'backbone' provider who connects everybody else (like Level 3). They have 'peering agreements' that say how much everything costs when data is sent/received.
Additional use by one person shouldn't be crazy more expensive to an ISP, but it might not be a rounding error either (less than a penny).
The real problem is that so many ISPs have a fit about not allowing servers because they don't want to deal with it, and the result is that their transit costs are exorbitant because almost all of the data flows in one direction — towards the end users. This is all fixable, but it requires the ISPs not being so myopic about liability that they drive their transit costs through the ceiling.
Forget data caps - I want power caps outlawed (Score:1, Flamebait)
I have a 200 amp service from the power company. I should be able to pay a flat monthly rate no matter how much of it I use, right up to 200 amps. Oh, and it should be affordable, not thousands of dollars, not even if I use 35 megawatt hours every month. Because: reasons.
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I have a 200 amp service from the power company. I should be able to pay a flat monthly rate no matter how much of it I use, right up to 200 amps. Oh, and it should be affordable, not thousands of dollars, not even if I use 35 megawatt hours every month. Because: reasons.
Several differences:
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With the exception of DOS attacks, you're in as much control over how much data is sent to and from you as you are over how much energy your appliances use.
To an extent it's the Internet companies' own fault for not charging by use in the first place, instead baking a certain quantity of use into the monthly charge. But you are paying a monthly fee for electrical distribution regardless of use and it's not exactly tiny.
Your other two points don't make any sense. I think maybe you were trying to say that Int
Fritz Post (Score:3, Funny)
Why the Elephant logo? (Score:3, Interesting)
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"what does this article have to do with the US Republican Party?"
TFS does refer to Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington
One would assume that someone appointed by Trump would be a Republican.
Although not all Republicans support Trump these days...
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Throttle instead. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't like data caps, but at the very least traffic should be throttled if heavy users aren't being charged any more. I think my ISP does that instead of capping data and charging extra. My mobile carrier charges for traffic over the data cap, so I just don't use it for data.
The reality of oversubscription means that ISPs simply can't guarantee a high minimum bandwidth if every single user is using as much as they can simultaneously. This is true for POTS, the cell network, and ISPs. Networks are sized fo
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But of course this requires more techni
What?! (Score:3)
Banning data caps is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard...and there are a lot of dumb ideas out there on this interwebs thing. Caps can be a way to keep usage to reasonable levels in order to provide a reasonable level of service to all users. Let the providers and customers work it out in the market. Like with anything else they'll be smarter than central planners.
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"Caps can be a way to keep usage to reasonable levels in order to provide a reasonable level of service to all users."
Or, you know, maybe ISPs could quit oversubscribing their networks and use that 200 billion in tax breaks from 1996 to actually do what they were fucking supposed to do.
You corporate bootlicking shill.
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maybe ISPs could quit oversubscribing their networks
That would cost more. You're welcome to ask your ISP for such a subscription (ask for enterprise connection pricing)...but most people want to pay less than that so oversubscription is the deal. Forbidding caps in the context of necessary oversubscription is just asking to subsidize the heaviest users who will negatively impact your experience. Pick your poison carefully.
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You corporate bootlicking shill.
What a logical, well-reasoned, and persuasive argument.
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If you didn't have an obvious taste for leather, you wouldn't have had to hear about the disdain for your proclivities.
Data caps are wholly unnecessary. Throttle users to something reasonable at all times, and provide enough bandwidth for typical use. Remember, these corporations are utilizing public land, public frequencies, or both to "provide" "service" to customers. There is literally no reason why these legal fictions which exist only on paper should be permitted to shaft users with our resources.
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Let the providers and customers work it out in the market
There is often a government-protected monopoly. But government does have caps itself...maybe it's just that government wants to absorb private enterprise and crush customers under its own boot.
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Banning data caps is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard...and there are a lot of dumb ideas out there on this interwebs thing. Caps can be a way to keep usage to reasonable levels in order to provide a reasonable level of service to all users. Let the providers and customers work it out in the market. Like with anything else they'll be smarter than central planners.
Here's the thing. Most users don't have a choice in broadband providers. They have cable, period. Alternatives like cellular are obscenely expensive and slow, making them borderline useless except as a lifeline for people who live in areas that don't have cable lines. When you have a glorified monopoly in a market, you can't let the market work it out, because if the cable company instates a cap, customers have only one choice: service or no service.
In that context, banning or limiting the nature of dat
What are data caps ? (Score:2, Interesting)
My unlimited 900/600Gb with a fixed IP costs me US$48 a month (including taxes)
I run my own servers, I have backed up 20TB one month with zero issues.
Own my own modem
I also have access to about 20 ISPs and if I want to pay more I can move up to 4Tb
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LULz, you aren't getting 900Gb for $48. But your entire brag is just sad. No one cares.
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But as for caring... you did otherwise you would not have replied.
But as far as broadband is concerned, the USA is not great, other countries do it far better, far cheaper.
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Are you in the U.S.? Having 20 ISPs to choose from would be atypical, if so.
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Comcast makes you pay more for your equipment to h (Score:3)
Comcast makes you pay more for your equipment to have umlimted vs renting from comcast with umlimted
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Data bloat (Score:2)
What about synchronus connections? (Score:1)
I remember when data caps were all zero (Score:3)
It was a line rental plus something like 20c per MB used.
If we have to have data caps (Score:2)
The FCC regulates the data cap monthly bandwidth amount and the overage fees per MB/GB so that they're consistent across all Internet providers. The FCC would do a yearly study of all internet data use by consumers and set the data cap so that 95% of consumers would not be affected by them. This should penalize the true data hogs while preventing most consumers from being charged overage fees.
I'm some what concerned about what the next president might do the the FCC commission. The next president may change
Keep the data caps, I'm cheap. (Score:1)
I don't use that much data, to many free wifi, and don't use my phone that much.
Cheaper for me and others to get the low cap instead of having jacked up prices because we now have to go with a mandatory unlimited plan.