What will you do if they start putting meters on broadband use?

[Cheap21]

where do you live? I know in many foreign countries, you have to pay for badnwith but for the most part, in the US, bandwith is unlimited. Only a few internet providers tend to charge and from what Ive seen, those tend to be on the west coast. I pay $34.95 for as many GBs as I want

[DRW50]

I guess we'd better enjoy that while we can, cheap 21...hopefully some ISPs will still keep that going even after this thing passes.

[DRW50]

http://stopthecap.com/2010/12/20/the-broadband-providers-holy-grail-charging-you-for-every-web-application-you-use/#comments

[DRW50]

Bleh. The ISPs are just waiting to start the big money I'm sure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/business/media/21fcc.html

[Mr. Vixen]

Well there goes YouTube and Porn.

[Toups]

I live in Canada. Of course I wish I could download as many GBs as I want, but it does make sense to have tiers for bandwidth. A person who only uses 10 GBs a month shouldn't have to pay the same as a person who uses 100GBs a month.

[SFK]

Ugh. So is there a little pop up meter that tracks how much you've used or are you merely ovecharged at the end of the month for going over? I have no idea how much I even use so this is all so mind bottling[/Joey] to me. We just got a new cable/internet provider, and I had no idea that you had three choices of just how high speed you can get your high speed. SIMPLIFY! One speed, one rate, one baptism.

[Toups]

With Rogers, you have an online account that you can check. I check everyday because I use all of the 60 GBs/month. I download a tone! LOL Also, whenever you hit 75% and 100%, you get a pop up notification.

[bellcurve]

Am I the only one who believes American companies will not do this?

These companies want as much money from you as possible. There's no way they will send you a pop-up saying you're almost over your download limit. They want to charge people the two dollars per extra GB just to stick it to people. Look at the way cellphone companies are ran. If someone has a limited amount of texts, they don't send you a warning when you are nearing the end of that. They just keep tacking it on, charging you extra.

[DRW50]

I think they will include the pop-up thing, because a lot of people might just either refuse to pay or pay and then go to another provider, the way some of the cell phone companies are starting to panic because customers are leaving due to not being told in advance about all the different charges. It would also cause a lot of protests and Congressional people trying to get in the paper by making a big case over the issue.

Yes but what is being used? That's what I never really understand. The Internet is basically limitless, from what I've read. It's not like someone is hogging resources.

The other problem is that this is probably about increasing rates for everyone, not just those who go over a certain amount. Everyone has to pay higher and higher cable bills, no matter how many channels they have. Now people will probably have to pay higher and higher even if they just have a basic service. There are people who only get online to check their e-mail, and yet they still have to pay a set amount. The companies probably won't ever do what is actually a fair amount of charging based on usage.

I hope it won't happen. I think it will stifle innovation and in the long run make less people use the Internet, or only use it in a very limited manner. I don't think we would have the heavy-Internet presence we do today if we had never moved on from the days when most people used AOL and had to be nickel and dimed every time they went over a certain amount. It was only after AOL and other places went unlimited that more and more began going online.

I would also think that places like Youtube, if the companies were thinking in the long-run, could be used in ways besides charging for bandwidth. Just put the ads of the ISP on there and make people watch them. That way people would remember that and be grateful for still being able to watch stuff out there without extra charges, instead of no longer going to Youtube and resenting their provider for what they've taken away.

[Sylph]

What do you mean – what is being used? Everything you see takes a certain storage space, some memory bits. If it's text, it's not "memory-heavy". If it's images, then things change. Even though most of the images on the internet are JPEGs, which is a compressed image format (an equivalent of an MP3 file in the imaging world). Many browsers offer the possibility to turn off the images so you can save there, but at what price? YouTube videos are downloaded to your temporary internet files and they to take space, even more than images.

And the internet isn't really limitless, several times a year a story will pop up in the news how the worlds resources (undersea cables etc.) are pretty strained right now and if internet is to enter a new age, the infrastructure has to change.

[DRW50]

What resources are being taken by those who do use 100GB a month? Is this causing any sort of strain on the Internet, or causing less people to be able to use the Internet? That's what I mean.

It just sounds like a canard to me, along with the one about how tiered pricing will somehow help the poor to use the Internet.

[Sylph]

Depends on the company. If it's smaller, sometimes heavy downloads can clog them, but that's only temporary. I don't really think it's a valid argument from them.

[DRW50]

That's what I don't really get either. Many countries have unlimited and there are no problems. Australia is actually moving towards unlimited because of the fiasco involving tiered pricing.

http://stopthecap.com/2010/06/22/telstra-faces-the-consequences-australia-has-a-reality-check-but-where-is-ours/

[Cheap21]

IDA. It should remain one flat rate for all. The closest theres is to tiers here as the speed you purchase. I believe the base rate for my ISP is like 7 mbps and you can purchase faster options if you want. I really think thats the extent of any tier system that there should be.