
Coronavirus could force ISPs to abandon data caps forever - raybb
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-could-force-isps-to-abandon-data-caps-forever/
======
mdasen
I think that data caps aren't a good solution simply because they don't have a
good connection with network capacity. Many wireless carriers have started
doing "deprioritization" after a certain amount of usage which is a lot more
consumer friendly. If the network has capacity, heavy users see no difference
in their connection. If the network is capacity constrained, it favors lighter
users so that they get their money's worth.

My school did this when I was an undergrad. The top 100 users on campus often
used more than half the bandwidth. That was fine and the school was more than
happy for them to use the internet heavily - the connection had already been
paid for, might as well have it used. However, the school did put them at a
lower priority when there was congestion. Most of the heavy users didn't even
notice.

I'm really hopeful that wireless technologies will improve competition over
the next decade. If three wireless companies can provide home broadband
competition in the future, we won't be beholden to the single provider that
most of us deal with now. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all bought a bunch of
millimeter wave spectrum in the latest auction (in addition to their current
holdings). T-Mobile is gearing up for a big home broadband push. They're
hoping to have 9.5M home broadband customers in the next three years which
would probably make them the third largest after Comcast and Charter who have
around 26-27M I believe (and around double Fios' customer base). Having even a
little competition would mean that they'd have to compete for my business
rather than being able to hike prices every year.

~~~
osrec
A lot of UK broadband is advertised as "unlimited" but subject to a fair usage
policy. I guess they must use a similar system to the one you described. It's
pretty decent, and I'm never really thinking about my usage, which is what I
like (I don't want to feel like I'm going to run out of bandwidth).

Interestingly, my ISP gave me a breakdown of my data usage, and I was under a
meager 30gb/mo ever since my contact started. That surprised me as I watch a
fair bit of YouTube etc, however, I guess it just doesn't add up to all that
much.

~~~
mcny
> Interestingly, my ISP gave me a breakdown of my data usage, and I was under
> a meager 30gb/mo ever since my contact started. That surprised me as I watch
> a fair bit of YouTube etc, however, I guess it just doesn't add up to all
> that much.

My hypothesis (could be wrong, very anecdotal, no evidence):

1\. YouTube does some pretty heavy compression to begin with (as several
popular YouTubers have complained over the years) 2\. YouTube in its default
settings switches to the lower resolution when it detects you are not actively
watching the video

I think this one two punch means that you sip on data even when you think you
use YouTube a lot.

~~~
frosted-flakes
> when it detects you are not actively watching the video

How? By its very nature, watching video is passive. Unless they watch you
through the camera.

It actually infuriates me when YouTube auto-lowers the resolution (usually
because I have slow Internet). I almost always set it to 720p or 1080p, but I
have to do it every time because it doesn't remember my setting.

------
nickthegreek
No it wont. Sure they might waive fees for a 60 days or so but to think that
these corporations would give up their free money piggy bank is untethered
from reality. If anything they will use it to try and get people to upgrade to
a higher tier.

~~~
dsr_
A shiny nickel says that right now, there is an ISP sales VP asking if the
terms of service for customer lines exclude using a VPN to get in to work, and
if this can be detected and used as a forced upsell.

~~~
Spivak
I'm actually hoping that ISPs start to squeeze in this direction just because
it's something that might actually garner enough anger/support to force
legislators to say what exactly buying "internet service" means. Businesses
aren't gonna be happy when people start expensing their internet service.

So _please_ force customers to upgrade to a $2-3x "business class" package if
they want to use their internet to do any work/commercial activity.

~~~
penagwin
Until the ISPs decide that all freelancers and any VPN are "business use" and
then the legislators don't do anything about it.

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cletus
“Dats caps” have many variations.

Americans are used to the version where tricks and ISPs advertise “unlimited”
but have arbitrarily defined and enforced caps with no transparency where tut
may get throttled, random packets dropped, that sort of thing.

Australia OTOH (IMHO) handled this much better.

The ACCC (like the FTC/FCC but with teeth and without regulatory capture) said
it was false advertising under the Trade Practices Act to say something was
“unlimited” if it has soft or hard data caps.

What this did in the nascent days of Australia’s broadband was force ISPs to
offer an explicit quota that was advertised. It allowed Javier users to pay
more and lighter users to pay less.

Some hardliners here will rejects even that but non-American ISPs have one big
coat and limitation that American ISPs don’t: they have to pay to connect to
America. And transpacific bandwidth certainly wasn’t free.

Nowadays unlimited is more the norm and it’s actual unlimited too. This is
just market maturity as external bandwidth is a lot more plentiful than 10-20
years ago.

Of course, the connection speeds still suck but that’s a whole other thing.

My point is that companies need to be stopped when they make false claims
about “unlimited” or anything else.

------
amitport
This will probably only change through regulation. The only way you'll get
regulation is by making politicians view this as very good PR for themselves.

(This is what happened in Israel, though it's rare to see such effectiveness
here)

------
kwhitefoot
What are the data caps? How many GB of up and down traffic?

Here in Norway only mobile data is capped. ADSL and fibre are effectively
unlimited. As far as I know this is generally the case in Europe.

~~~
markovbot
Here in the US, my Comcast internet connection comes with a 1TB (up and down
combined, i think) per month cap. If you go over they give you a warning the
first few times, then charge some outrageous amount per gigabyte that you go
over. If you ask them how much for an uncapped connection, they will lie to
you and claim that option does not exist. Only after blowing the cap a few
times will they admit that they will remove the cap for an _additional_
$50/mo.

This is the only ISP that services my house in a residential area of Seattle.

~~~
klipt
Even working from home I think would have trouble blowing through 1TB in a
month. How many hours of video conferencing would that cover? Initial Google
search says about 4hrs/GB, so 4000hrs/TB, or over 5 months of nonstop video
conferencing?

~~~
Naac
Video conferencing is not the only thing people do with their residential
internet.

~~~
klipt
It's the most data intensive thing I can imagine that fits with working from
home due to Covid-19.

Obviously if you're hosting a website from your home server you can go above
that, but why would you do that instead of using a real host and ssh-ing in,
which wouldn't even register against 1TB?

~~~
larrywright
You’re assuming that nobody has a job that requires transferring large files
on a regular basis.

~~~
klipt
Why do those files have to be transferred to your home? Can't you use
ssh/remote desktop to connect to your office desktop and work with them there?

~~~
myu701
AutoCAD over local NFS chokes, I can't imagine trying to run it over VDI.

Some things are just IO and processor intensive, and for those, having the
data be local is a much more efficient process overall.

~~~
dragonwriter
> AutoCAD over local NFS chokes, I can't imagine trying to run it over VDI.

VDI lets the “desktop” actually running the software potentially be more local
to the storage than local NFS, even though both are more distant from the end-
user, so I don't see the problem.

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maerF0x0
I've often thought there should be like an optional slowlane and fastlane for
downloads. Last night I downloaded a 20GB game and it nearly pinned my
internet connection and downloaded in about 20 mins. But I knew i wasnt going
to play if for several hours and there would be no reason to "brownout" my
neighbors. I want fast internet when i want it. But also see a time and place
for "download this, eventually"

~~~
Darkphibre
This _should_ be possible client-side... You just negotiate the TCP ACKs to
have a slower response rate, essentially self-throttling the quality of the
connection.

~~~
frosted-flakes
OneDrive and SyncThing allow you to set a max transfer speed, so it's
definitely possible. OneDrive in particular will absolutely kill my network if
it's not throttled (I have slow 10/1mbps DSL). It took a while for us to
figure that out; for months we were randomly experiencing terrible Internet
speeds.

I don't even bother with OneDrive anymore because our Internet is so slow that
stuff was _always_ syncing. I use SyncThing between my phone, laptop, and
desktop instead, which can sync over the local network.

------
bondolo
They had the chance to price data with some relation to their costs and
instead chose to squeeze a few customers while providing everyone inferior
service.

Wireless still needs to have a price associated with usage; usage monopolizes
a shared resource, EM spectrum, and there should be a cost for that.

For wired or fibre as the CEO of Sonic, Dane Jasper, has always said data is
in reality mostly too cheap to bother metering.

------
mnm1
Doubtful. I wfh and have hit Comcast's cap a few times in the past.
Radioactive? I have no fucking choice even though less than a mile away in all
directions there's century link.

The solution is to get a lower speed. I went from 300 to 250 to 200. It's not
noticeable. I'd like a gig, but it's just not worth it. This way I pay less
too. Fuck Comcast and the monopolies we have here.

------
Funes-
We should use open-source mesh wireless networks, and do away with ISPs once
and for all.

~~~
iptrans
Wireless mesh networks are all fun and games until you try to scale up.

First you have to deal with the huge coordination issue of getting everybody
in line and on line to actually form a mesh.

Then if you actually succeed with that you have to deal with physics,
maintenance and upgrades.

Most, if not all networks that start as meshes, devolve into centralized
networks.

Then all you have is another ISP.

The root cause to why wireless mesh networks don’t exist in any meaningful way
is that traditional ISP networks are more cost effective.

------
cornishpixels
What? LOL. No it won't. A few providers will lift them temporarily and then go
right back to how things were in a couple of months.

> the very fact that the limits can be lifted at will or certain high-traffic
> categories (such as a broadband company’s own streaming TV channels) can be
> exempted [... proves that] there is definitively enough capacity for the
> network to be used without those caps

Someone doesn't understand how the Internet works.

~~~
jessaustin
Please connect the dots here; what you've written is nonsensical without
further explanation. The technical argument in TFA is pretty simple: if this
traffic level is feasible now, it will also be feasible in a couple of months.
If instead you're making a point about how horrible FCC is, then be more
explicit about it.

~~~
tzs
The cable company's own streaming channels are presumably served from servers
on the company's own infrastructure, and the traffic from them to your home
does not leave their own infrastructure. So, presumably, that does not count
against your internet cap because from the cable company's point of view it is
not using the internet. To them, it's part of their intranet.

~~~
jessaustin
I don't think that's really what we're talking about? Anyway, it's incorrect,
because backhaul is cheap. The whole reason we have to deal with Comcast etc.
is the many barriers to competition over the "last mile".

------
scarejunba
The best way to do data is (connection_fee + usage/MB). That's the most
customer-friendly way to do things. It allows customers to alter their usage
according to their billing ability. Fixed line usage is probably in the
decicents per GB. Wireless is probably in the $8/GB range. All acceptable. I
may have the numbers wrong but I think I'm probably in the ballpark.

~~~
iptrans
You are pretty close on the numbers.

Fixed network bandwidth is centicents per GB, and that’s for wholesale IP
transit. Peering bandwidth can be cheaper at scale. For all intents and
purposes fixed bandwidth is too cheap to meter on consumer connections. As
such a single fixed monthly rate for unlimited usage at the chosen line rate
is the appropriate solution. Also the most consumer friendly way.

In regulated markets, wholesale costs for a GB of wireless traffic is less
than $3. Here you can argue for billing by usage, but there are markets with
true unlimited wireless services, and they do just fine.

~~~
scarejunba
Ah neat. That's cool. I like that. It could also be like fixed below usage and
per GB above to mirror the costs. Essentially, small enough that a normal
consumer won't see a problem but your torrent 24x7 guy is paying his dues.

I have gigabit fibre here in SF and if I ran at full tilt I'm doing 100 MB/s ×
3600 s/hr × 0.01 cents / GB × 0.01 GB / MB = 36 cents / hr. And that's $260 on
traffic per month. I think it's fine to pay that in overages if you're using
at full tilt.

I totally get the advantage of not worrying about that. I prefer my unlimited
which just has a soft limit but I'd prefer to pay for what I use without
subsidizing the 0.01 percentile customer.

I'm also a big fan of traffic shaping for wireless because honestly my
WhatsApp message is probably more important than my YouTube video. Pause the
latter to send the former. Every time. The real tragedy is that we don't have
the attention (physically) to be able to auction instantaneous spectrum
bandwidth.

~~~
iptrans
You dropped a zero. There are 1000 MB in a GB, so your cost of running a Gbps
line at full tilt is more like 3.6 cents per hour.

In other words, bill everybody a dollar per month for bandwidth and worry
about it only if average usage per subscriber goes over 10 TB per month.

~~~
scarejunba
Listen, I have a graduate degree in Mathematics, so a mistake like that was
inevitable, _especially_ because I was trying to be careful about it.

That changes everything! The full-bore user is only $30 over the non-user. I
have completely changed my mind. Why even bother measuring this nonsense? This
explains why my provider doesn't charge per usage for my symmetric gigabit
plan.

------
jimbob45
I _am_ sympathetic to the ISPs. It's good for the planet and emergency
situations when we each use wi-fi instead of using cellular data. However, I
think the ISPs simply haven't shown enough creativity in incentivizing users
to use available wi-fi networks over cell data. I imagine very few people even
know that we should want to prioritize wi-fi.

~~~
kempbellt
>It's good for the planet and emergency situations when we each use wi-fi
instead of using cellular data.

How do you figure?

~~~
jimbob45
Everyone using cell signals takes up that much bandwidth that could otherwise
be used for emergency personnel - I'm not saying not to use cell towers, I'm
just saying that if you could choose between the two with no penalty on
either, wi-fi would be preferable.

Also I would think it's far cheaper energy-wise to transmit the signal from my
living room to my study rather than beaming the signal from a cell tower miles
away. I could be wrong.

------
seanmccann
I called Comcast and had 2 options. Pay $50/month for unlimited or pay $25/mo
for unlimited, but I would have to forgo using my own modem/router and use
theirs. Decided to just pay the $50, but we'll see what happens. I could see
them increasing the cap or forgiving overages for a few months.

~~~
alerighi
You must maybe use their modem (how they can check it I don't know, maybe they
don't give you the configuration parameters for the network?) but you always
have the possibility to add your own router after it and basically use their
modem/router as a simple modem.

It's what I did in my country before they made illegal for ISPs to force you
to use their modem/router, simply used the modem/router of the provider as a
modem, forwarding all the ports to my own router that I used to do actual
routing, WiFi access point and all other stuff that a router does.

~~~
vict00ms
They also charge you a monthly fee for using their modem.

~~~
monocasa
They waive that in a lot of cases, as they're trying to build out their
network of xfinitywifi hotspots you see everywhere. I still ran my own modem,
but it's a point to keep in mind.

~~~
wtallis
If it's providing a WiFi hotspot, then it's their _router_ that you're using,
not just their _modem_.

~~~
monocasa
They give you a combo router and modem by default when you run their modems
(for the reason given above). The WAN port is just a downstream port for the
internal router.

I don't think there's a way to disable the router itself in most cases these
days, just some of the services it provides.

------
x__x
For those in the eCommerce area, are you seeing more or less consumer spending
right now (outside of supplies ie toilet paper, masks, hand sanitizers..)

------
zajio1am
Are data caps from ISPs still a thing? Where i live, only mobile operators
have data caps, regular ISPs ditched that about ten years ago.

------
sidibe
They seem to have plenty of capacity, no issues in Bay Area despite many more
people WFH or working less and streaming more.

~~~
maerF0x0
personally my work uses nearly no bandwidth. a little Stackoverflow here and
there. probably peaks with video calls.

Certainly doesnt use even close to 4k streaming netflix.

------
jotm
One can only hope. I absolutely loved Three UK for their unlimited 4G, it was
my only Internet provider.

------
partiallypro
Verizon hasn't even waived data caps for wireless, so I doubt it.

------
sys_64738
We'd get free electricity and gas too then. Not gonna happen.

~~~
jedberg
The difference is that with gas and electric, there is an increased cost to
the utility to deliver more electricity and gas.

With bandwidth there is almost no additional cost to deliver more bandwidth.
Yes in aggregate they need to upgrade their equipment, but if they just got
rid of data caps tomorrow, they would incur almost no extra cost.

If electricity and gas suddenly became fixed cost, the cost to the utilities
would go up dramatically.

~~~
rsynnott
> With bandwidth there is almost no additional cost to deliver more bandwidth

Depends how awful your infrastructure is. The big ISP in Ireland was still
using microwave links as backhaul for ADSL until at least 2012 or so (in one
particularly ridiculous case, a whole village only had 8Mbit/sec backhaul),
and I believe there are still some developed countries where that kind of
setup is common.

Interestingly, back in the mid noughties, said ISP either gave ADSL customers
a 20GB cap or no cap, depending on if their local exchange had a fibre
backhaul. To confuse the issue, they referred to the latter as "fibre powered
broadband".

~~~
iptrans
The grandparent’s comment still stands.

Upgrading backhaul is a fixed cost. There is no incremental cost for usage.

Very much different than power generation.

------
listsfrin
It's a great time to increase prices if you ask me.

~~~
mdszy
Good thing nobody's asking you then.

~~~
justwalt
Do you think it’s a good time to increase prices?

~~~
mdszy
I enjoy how you edited this from "Did anyone ask you?"

No. Why the hell would the time of a disaster be a good time to increase
prices for people who rely on these services.

Go away.

~~~
justwalt
Lol, no, I asked you this question because the other guy said "Did anyone ask
you?"

That way you could answer yes to him. It looks like he deleted his comment.

------
woah
The concept that data caps are somehow uniquely unjust is dumb. Bandwidth is a
scarce resource, like seats on a train. Nobody gets mad that the train company
charges per ride instead of only selling monthly passes. Be mad that your ISP
has a monopoly and charges too much. Don’t be mad about a pricing scheme that
is completely reasonable if the prices involved are fair.

~~~
robcohen
I would agree with you if there were evidence to support your claim, but there
is not.

Actually there is evidence to the contrary.
[https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2013/02/cable-companies-
make-9...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2013/02/cable-companies-
make-97-margin-on.html?amp)

The truth is fiber bandwidth is cheap.

~~~
listsfrin
There's lots of evidence that internet is cheap. Too bad we don't have those
ISPs to provide it. Have you ever thought how hard it is to dig a 50m hole in
the ground to put fiber in it?

~~~
StillBored
It can be a lot easier than digging trenches. Where I lived I've watched
various google & TW contractors running fiber on existing utility poles. It
surprised me how fast those guys can move, I'm talking a couple guys and a
truck can probably do a few miles a day. Last time I saw it, they had a couple
trucks doing some prep work ahead of a guy literally walking along under the
cable pulling that spinner thing. They had wired from the office building I
was in, down the road a couple miles, by lunch.

(random youtube video)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMjCvMxp-M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMjCvMxp-M)

~~~
listsfrin
Most people move fast if they are paid accordingly.

