said by Dogfather :

If all people did was browse and use email, they would stick to dial up for less than 1/6th the price.

This is just TWC abusing their market position to stop video competitors like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix from taking their VOD PPV revenue.

How about instead of letting their marketing department set their speeds, they actually sell speeds their network can support?

But it's certainly not surprising for cable who has made their business on raising prices while cutting services. It's certainly no wonder that a company like Comcast has lower satisfaction ratings than the Internal Revenue Service.

said by Dogfather :

Huh? The airlines are bankrupting themselves trying to compete with each other. Watching what the others do and responding is exactly what competition is.

said by JusticeDun :

What is wrong with some of you people that you think caps are good idea? Why would you want to go backwards instead of forwards?

said by mjgould :

I would like to see what happens if Time Warner tries to deploy caps in a college town.

said by MrMaster :

not all airlines are going belly up.

love them or hate them Southwest is doing just fine.

said by mjgould :

The problem for us is that TW has not been spending the money for upgrades. Right now I am getting the advertised speeds which for me is 7mbps, but come August when 75% of the students come back I will be lucky to get 3mbps from my 7mbps connection from about 5PM until 4AM the next morning.

said by Cod :

He uses a cable company's name in his online alias... need I say more in regards to what team he's pulling for?

said by tr1pp1n87 :

i have a better solution its called throttle p2p... most of p2p downloads in the usa are for illegal purposes... if isps filtered torrent sites ie: legaltorrents, and p2p based video streaming this would eliminate most of the congestion on their networks... most of the people here complain about torrents being filtered cuz none of you pay for shit and you only know how to get your files via torrents i hope for my sake comcast and sandvine find a way to throttle you torrent kiddies and do not institute caps...

said by amigo_boy :

Is it reasonable to believe an ISP can deliver constant bandwidth, even if it goes unused 80% of the day? It seems like there's two ways to look at this.

1. Guarantee they can provide 7mbps any time you need it (even if that capacity sits idle 80% of the time.

2. Estimate average capacity based upon historic usage patterns.

The first choice seems like it would be very expensive. The second choice seems to correspond to what we expect with our traditional telephone service. The phone company doesn't guarantee everyone in the country can pick up their handset at the same moment and get a dial tone. Just that you will get a dial tone if the historic use holds true.

I guess there's a third choice. They just tell you "up to" speeds without any indication of how average that speed will be. I agree that's wrong.

Mark

said by Jaghar :

This poison is that we may have to suffer because of companies overselling a product and not improving the product to keep up with demand.

said by qworster :

Building roads that can handle 100,000 cars an hour, when they only actually handle these loads six hours a day.

said by fiberguy :

No.. why don't we mandate that companies like Blizzard run their own data centers and use their own bandwidth. Blizzard is a commercial entity, right? They are using p2p for distribution, right? What method is being used? Last mile internet services of RESIDENTIAL users.

By using the P2P method, they are asking people to distribute files for a commercial purpose (money is made in the distribution of these files) over a residential service. I see that clearly as a violation of the AUP of most ISP's. While the end user of the P2P is not a commercial entity, by making the files OF a commercial entity available, they are then proxies of the commercial entity and abusing their service.

Just the same as music on hold is a benefit to a business owner (ie: people are more likely to wait on hold if there is music and a company is more likely to make the sale) so is the end user of last mile internet connections.

I have NEVER agreed with Blizzard using P2P for distributing their updates - especially at the size they are.

By blizzard using their own resources, sure the price of the game will rise. But who cares.. those who play need to pay.

Because of "legal" commercial traffic taking place over residential lines, people like ME get to pay more so your blizzard patches don't raise your monthly gaming costs. I personally don't care to subsidize a 'game' that others want to play.

Just try to argue that one.

said by kfsutops :

It's not really competition when one company (airline as an example)charges $25 for the first bag and then all they other companies say "me too" and start charging the same fees. This is what is having in the broadband market because most markets have no competition.

said by fiberguy :

The internet is NOT a "public utility"... It may be important to YOU or to SOME, but still not to the masses.

said by Matt :

What is their definition of HD? That iTunes/Xbox 360 crap isn't even high quality 720p, with an average HD rental being between 3-6GB in total size.

One movie and you're done. Just wait until real HD streaming comes along or god forbid, 1080p content.

said by fiberguy :

The internet is NOT a "public utility"... It may be important to YOU or to SOME, but still not to the masses.

said by BF69 :

Listen blu-ray streams at 40 Mbps. So HD movies streaming at blu-ray bitrates are impossible now and will be for a long time. And to be honest, are probably unnecessary. Even if you had a 40 Mbps connection name me any website that actually stream content or data that fast?

said by fiberguy :

I believe that part of the P2P software is a server which offers a client server

said by Mr Matt :

I have a better solution, and that is to require websites sending streaming data streams to pay the ISP's for carrying their traffic.

said by fiberguy :

... and?

said by Matt :

I meant the total download size, not streaming.

said by fiberguy :

The whole back bone of our economy is not the internet. Ever heard of housing? Sheesh.. come on now. Your entire message has done nothing to convince me that the internet is a "utility".. the very nature of "the internet" itself says it is not a utility. Any idea what the "internet" is?

People bank on line. Great! They check their balances to see if checks clear and maybe move money. You can't still pick up the phone and do it? (Again, convenience)

Research for school. Again, go to the library. They have computers there and the lines are most likely better than you will get at home. Not to mention, last time I checked, books still exist.

College courses are still offered in the classroom. Online courses are often offered for conveneince. Yes, I know only SOME courses are offered ONLY online - that's not enough to make the internet a utility. That was a stupid decision on the colleges part.

Some people tele-commute - you're right. I'm one of them. Still, it's not a requirement nor do enough people do it to consider it a "utility"...

"Business is done and billions of deals exchanged via net meeting, email, online account transfers, and VPN's." So, so, so and so. Those are businesses and are not enough to base the internet on a "utility".. There certainly is no issue on that end of the internet. Why? Those connections are FAR more stable and.. guess what? They PAY for their ACTUAL WORTH! .. not $16.99 a month.

You said it right. A lot has changed and "not for me in line of work". You are not THE actual top of the food chain. While it's important to you, and you have integrated it in almost everything you do, that's you. And yes, many people still don't use the internet as their primary source of everything.

What you want to do it protect the internet because you, rightfully so, have found ways to make your life easier and most likely cheaper. However, that still, in my opinion, is NOT enough to make the internet, today, a utility.

You do not need the internet to sustain life as you do the phone, power, and water. The internet has improved your life, but you do not need it to "sustain" life.

said by Rick :

or institute caps that low.

Fios and even Uverse competition will see to that.

said by fiberguy :

Ok.. let me repeat - even though it's above in plain text.

Blizzard's costs would rise if they operated their own data distribution centers and pushed out those 400 meg patches on their own dime.

said by amigo_boy :

Obviously it is. I think P2P is a novel concept to distribute load. But, I think it should be deprioritized like a batch, background process.

said by fiberguy :

With caps in place, it will allow them to manage their networks from those that go above and beyond their rights to abuse the resources.

said by tr1pp1n87 :

i have a better solution its called throttle p2p... most of p2p downloads in the usa are for illegal purposes... if isps filtered torrent sites ie: legaltorrents, and p2p based video streaming this would eliminate most of the congestion on their networks... most of the people here complain about torrents being filtered cuz none of you pay for shit and you only know how to get your files via torrents i hope for my sake comcast and sandvine find a way to throttle you torrent kiddies and do not institute caps...

said by pspcrazy :

Not at all when a node is oversold it's as simple as either a> build a new node so that more user's can get on or b>Get out so someone could replace you like FIOS for instance.

You seem to like odd and often false analogies. No one here is saying that the cable backbone is built in a day,

...but it's been many many years now and cable is still lagging behind what it could have been if it hadn't been sitting on it's butt soaking in profit's like nothing else.

You are trying to understand why people on here debate against caps?

Well I'll tell you why it's because the cable companies listen when people start having the same belief that cable is becoming crap, and it's time to move onto something else.

For them the customer is money, and when that money leaves their potential net revenue's you can bet they'll drop caps and figure out a better solution.

If they are having capacity issues scale down the max speed on each person's modem and don't oversell the node to that extend.

DSL is going just fine with 0 capacity problems, yet cable which is supposedly better has had capacity problems for years on end.

It seems to me that your the arrogant one that needs to go to college, I'm sorry to say this but anyone that insults someone that many times in a sentence is just some child which doesn't have a proper come back.

said by fiberguy :

You, like many, have failed to address the upload element of the network.

said by fiberguy :

And BT... congestion avoiding? HAH! Haven't you head of what the BT God himself said? In case you haven't, he wants BT to use as much of the available bandwidth as possible.

said by fiberguy :

But, see my first point.. it's the upstream. Have you forgot the most basic need for the upstream? How about the basic ability to be connected?

said by fiberguy :

Your client server power through argument holds no basis here. Microsoft, one of the largest file distributors, never seems to have a problem getting it's files out. Even when new SPs are released, I still fly through the download with out a problem.

said by fiberguy :

Sure, blizzard is no where near the size of MS, but that's no excuse for them to impact another business because of the lack of resources or their desire to pass the buck.

said by fiberguy :

I remain on the fact that P2P users and those that use services like Blizzard are being subsidized by users like me.. and those users are also the cause for people like me seeing the new caps on the horizon.

said by fiberguy :

Yes.. AC is a luxury, not everyone has it do they? I suppose that a few million in San Francisco alone haven't hear that, huh? And before you talk about how cool it is in SF, Mr. AR, San Francisco can and does get into the high 90's.. even breaks 100 there. Trust me, I've lived there.

Now, back to the topic. Where did I dismiss the importance of the internet? Please try to pull yourself out of emotions for a moment and look at reality.

The campus is a place of learning, right? YES. I believe that if they don't have internet, and some don't, they would do their research on the campus where they have the tools to find the information. Last time I checked, they have internet on campus in those book borrowing rooms.

Stop being a drama queen here for a moment. EVERYTHING you described in that thread, ONCE AGAIN, is to make life easier. It does not sustain life nor does having it in your home make it better for society at this time. Colleges, as your example, has often better than any internet you can get at home - maybe you didn't see me say that a few times already, maybe you were at one too many parties in college and should have paid attention?

And, I could care less if people get charged a fee to NOT use the internet to pay a bill. WHO CARES? That's a problem of the business and the end user. How do you know, with out the internet, that prices would have risen the amount of those fees absent of the internet? Keeping "fees" down is not a reason to make the internet a utility. It still doesn't make it a "necessity".. it means you still have the option to, oh my, MAIL your payment! Novel concept! Fees are not an excuse. Nice try.

Everything you just described has all been things that makes things more convenient. Look, I have Three connections to the internet in my home. I CHOOSE TO! However, I don't believe in subsidizing it, and I don't believe in mandating it. I still believe that if people want the internet and can't afford it, then they need to walk their happy butt to their local library and use it there.

Next you'll ask if I think a car is a luxury. Those with out cars use the bus don't they? Now, before you say that cities run buses, there are still cities that DON'T have bus service.

Fun..