It could be worse: data caps around the world

Basically, enjoy Netflix and other streaming services while you can. Because, barring outright customer riots, the internet will soon go back in time (*cue Huey Lewis music*). I wonder if the music and movie/tv industry has thought far enough ahead yet to realize that the end of these things, means the loss of possibly billions of dollars in revenue? Of course, this doesn't just affect music and film, it affects much more. Think about the current (and future) state of browsing the internet without an ad blocker. We now have movie-like ads using Flash and Silverlight, "slideshow" ads, all of that is downloaded as we surf. Will advertisers be all that thrilled when ad-blocking becomes almost, if not completely necessary, instead of just a way to avoid them?

What about news tickers and such on news sites, stock market tickers, real-time stock market programs that are in wide use? What about security programs that update in real-time? What about the irony that is cable networks releasing a selection of their shows on to their own websites? What about Youtube? What about online gaming (most of which uses upload more than download)? This all started as a way to combat piracy (don't let anyone else tell you different), then it became about lack of money to keep up with the changes in the internet, which of course added in technical limitations. They're doing two things, one, they aren't killing piracy, but are merely killing another chance to make money regardless of pirating. Two, they're blaming and punishing their users and companies like Netflix for the lack of funding that comes from the government (there's another thing happening too, the cable industry trying to drive us back to our TV sets, hence the irony in releasing tv shows to the internet while giving data caps).

 

I see examples only for the four former and current commonwealths
Would be interesting to see what happens elesewhere.

I don't have any cap, nor there is one, nor there will be.
Never seen or heard any case where this kicked into action.

I'm talking verified multiple cases of steady 2MB per second for several of my friends, who are p2p addicts, which translates into 7.2GB every hour or roughly 5TB every single month. Not a whisper of complaint, not a moment of data glitch.

Cheers,
Mrk

 

I noticed there wasn't a whole lot of point in having a broadband connection in Canada and Australia, lol. I don't think I have a data cap. But I'm not sure who owns my ISP anymore either, lol. I'm with Insight, and, a while back, I think it was Comcast who was buying them out (Cox perhaps?). In any case, I've received a single phone call since 2001 regarding my internet usage. That was about 5 years ago now, and it was in regards to a lot of uploading (P2P of course, hehe). All they did was ask me if I was the one doing the uploading (they thought I had a bot perhaps). Never once did they ask what I was doing or slow me down. I do think they implemented a throttle (I get around it), but with everything I do, Netflix included, I don't think there are true data caps--yet.

 

ill have to disagree with that. while the caps can be annoying (altho at university i dont have a cap ) the speed of broadband is certainly better than having dialup

 

Well, it wasn't meant to be taken too literally But you certainly are limited in what you can do (see my previous post on all the different things caps can affect).

 

lol i know what having a bandwidth cap does. my home internet has one afterall. and it does suck

 

Data caps are ridiculous and should be outlawed.

 

To hell with CRTC. My ISP currently doesn't cap my internet usage, but who knows how long that'll last.

 

I agree ... I'm not a heavy user (typically 3-5 gigs a month) mainly because I'm not into streaming media or online game. But I definitely agree that broadband is worth it, especially on the occasions when I have to DL relatively big files as opposed to general web-surfing.

My ISP supposedly has a "soft" cap (guess that means just a warning?) of 60 gigs a month, which unless you're a video freak should be more than generous.

(Edit) Also, I've never bothered to play with the web space which (as I think is typical) is included in my account. I imagine if you do keep such a site open and active, it could and probably would wreak havoc with your bandwidth.

 

Looks like I can contribute some data here seeing how the article lacks info about India. My ISP BSNL (Part of NIB-National Internet Backbone), biggest ISP in india has really serious caps. For instance the most popular plan (BBG FN Combo 500) is worth around $12 a month (I have this one, along the taxes $14), and does have a cap of 1.5 GB. for each extra MB I would need to pay RS. 0.20 (1 USD = 44.07 INR as of today). However from 2-8 AM bandwidth isnt counted. I normally schedule all my major download/updates for that time.

There are other major players in Indian markets too, but most of them are costlier than BSNL. Recently TRAI (Telephone Regulatory Authority of India) proposed to have minimum 2 MBit down and 256 Kbit up speed for all plans, but anyway nobody listened to them. Guess maybe in next 20 years we will see an improvement here.

Look the below links for some information:

Code:

http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/new_BB/BB_Standalone_lim.htm
http://www.bsnl.co.in/service/new_BB/BB_COMBO_lim.htm