

Bandwidth Caps May Be Critical Error For Broadband Companies - bfioca
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080122-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot-time-warners-usage-caps.html

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wmf
Doing nothing or breaking protocols may also be critical errors, so Time
Warner's plan is not necessarily doomed.

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Xichekolas
Finally someone said it.

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tx
Doesn't mean it's true. In Austin we have AT&T (DSL) vs TimeWarner (Cable) and
both of them have voiced their desire to become "evil corporations" following
Comcast.

And why is that a mistake? We're looking at the monopoly that starts milking
its monopolistic status. The article _assumes_ that competing technologies
will emerge. What if they won't? AT&T is bidding on those frequencies too.

P.S. F __ck AT &T and TimeWarner and their greed.

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Xichekolas
I have AT&T expressly because, of the two options in my town, it's the one
that doesn't transfer-limit cap. The other option is the local cable company,
which offers higher speeds, but caps monthly and bills for overages. I
seriously hope AT&T doesn't follow suit.

I have no problem with a broadband provider capping speeds and managing their
network. The problem I have with monthly transfer limits is that it is hard to
keep track of your own usage. I would rather be throttled down than billed
more, because being billed for overage is neither transparent nor easy to
control. You implement a system like this, and suddenly all those open
wireless networks in my apartment complex become interesting points of extra
free bandwidth for me. Would I be so nefarious? Maybe not, but a lot of people
would, and there is no way you can prove to the cable company that it wasn't
you. Capping speed is transparent. I know that the speed of my connection is
limited to 6mbps. I know how much I am paying for it. If that is overloading
your network, add more capacity or lower the speed caps or hell, shape the
traffic, but don't just charge extra for it and assume it'll work itself out.

So anyway, maybe these companies can milk it in the short term, but I have
faith that in the long term, any time a company tries to hold back progress by
abusing it's monopoly, they eventually get smashed.

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randallsquared
> Maybe not, but a lot of people would, and there is no way you can prove to
> the cable company that it wasn't you.

Er, in the scenario you describe, it _was_ you. Just sayin'.

