[waldojim]

You know, I love fun, light topics on the forums. I may not have a lot to say in them, but I sure do enjoy reading them. Yet it seems when I am not posting about some cool new toy, I am stuck posting up the latest rant. Sadly today is one of those days. Even more depressing is that I bet many people here are soon to be impacted by the very topic I am here to rant about.

First, so we have a clear starting point. I have a serious complaint about how internet usage is being billed. First I want to name the CULPRITS. The people I cannot stand, that are creating an outright mess. Sadly, I am not naming politicians. Though many of them are to blame as well. Comcast, Charter, ATT, Verizon Wireless, Wild Blue, and HugesNet please step forward, as you are ALL GUILTY.

First, we need few basics here, I don't want to get ahead of myself. The internet is a connection of pipes from one location to another. This connection can be used to send documents, stream video, or many other tasks. This data is typically requested by a peer (consumer for the remainder of this discussion) and the host (for discussion a web site) sends it off to them. The host must pay for a connection to this pipe. This pipe then leads to other, much larger pipes for transport, and eventually is broken back down for delivery. Seems simple enough. So, right now, I want to give a great example of another similar service. Fed-EX. You make a request of a company, they package an item and pay Fed-EX to deliver the package to you. This is step one of my grievance. Fed-EX does not charge the sender and the receiver for the package, only the sender. Who in their right minds think they need paid twice for this service? The only answer I can think of here, is that in our case, we must SEND a request, so it is only fitting we pay for the sent request. This is quite ironic, as the typical upload speed for home internet is extremely low.

SO to the REAL beef of the situation: DATA CAPS.

Again, so we have a more through understanding, ISPs do NOT pay per megabyte, gigabyte, or *byte of any type. ISPs pay for a pipe capable of specific speeds. There are many tricks ISPs use to deliver content that allows them to oversell on these pipes. Meaning that even though a DS-3 only delivers 45Mb/sec, the ISP can still deliver 15Mb internet to hundreds of users. Right now, the methods they use are not important. The fact is, they pay a flat monthly rate for that pipe. Yet, ISPs want to charge you not just for the pipe, but a fixed data cap as well. If you use all 100GB of your content without going over, you get your moneys worth. If not, then you spent money on content you will never receive. If you go over, you may be billed extra or have your service cut off!

This is like the electric company charging you for a 200Amp service, then telling you that if you use more than 1KW for the month, they are going to charge you double the normal rate, or shutting off your power! The problem here, is that while the electric company IS charging for both (sort of), they are charging a metered rated based on actual usage. They don't give you a random connection and then tell you not to use it. Worse still, the electric company won't even consider limiting you to 14 hours of service for the month should you actually use ALL of that 200A! That is the scariest part here. Charter Cable for example, has their 15MB service set up with a 100GB cap. A cap you can hit in FOURTEEN HOURS. VuDu HDX content runs at 9Mbit - roughly 22 hours of that will break your cap.

ATT has moved to a 250GB cap on their Uverse service. A service running 24Mb/sec. Once you exceeds 250GB, you get billed $10 for every 50GB. Go figure, they couldn't find a more granular meter. Instead they shoot for once that makes them more money in $10 increments.

How do these providers get away with charging THREE TIMES for the same content? How do they get away with these idiotic caps?

EASY - they have NO COMPETITION.
I am in the process of looking for a home. During my search, I am being forced to exclude entire neighborhoods because of the ISP available in the area. I have found areas that have only Charter Cable, only Uverse, only Embark and so on. With the exception of Embark, all of them have caps. From what I hear of the Embark neighborhoods, they don't need caps, as your connection won't be up long enough to get there. Verizon Fios, at the moment, is the only company cap-free and offering a reasonable service. They are also forced to go into places that have competition. Amazing how that works.

Why are we allowing these communities to set up exclusivity contracts with the ISPs?! Why isn't the government stopping this monopolistic practice? Before anyone goes on about how this is not a monopoly, I want you to step back and think about it from the customers view point. The only choice left if you don't agree with your ISPs policies, is to MOVE. Do you really think forcing people to sell their single most expensive investment and moving into a new one is somehow the right way to treat them? No. From where I sit, removing, eliminating, or flat out not allowing competition on breeds the results we see today.

Email whoever you have to. The FCC, Senators, governors, I really don't care - but do it. Tell them you are tired of being stepped on by ISPs simply because we allow them to operate without competition or fear of loosing a customer!

ISPs need to be afraid of their customers. It is the only way to fix this problem.

[coastie65]

Yep, For too long we were saddled with whatever cable company had the franchise finally ending up with Comcast. Dropped Comcast in '04 in favor of DirecTV. Kept that until '06, when Verizon brought FiOS in. Right now, in this neighborhood, you have three options for Internet that I am aware of: Verizon FiOS, Comcast cable, or Satellite. Ok, dial up as well, but no DSL. I can tell you that Comcast couldn't do much about satellite, but they put Verizon through a bunch of regulatory hoops ( that they didn't have to jump through ) trying to discourage them and hopefully stopping them. Also went after the county about awarding two franchises. You are right, FiOS has no cap and is not likely to have one. Big difference in Fiber Optics and that Copper stuff. We have competition and Comcast is losing ( even trying to repackage themselves as Xfinity ). I have had two reps show up at my door trying to sell me ( twice ), and I end up having a good time arguing with them. I guess they figure if they have two people show up, it will be intimidating, I don't know. Anyway, it could be anything from the way franchises are awarded, by the City, Town, or County usually. In our case Comcast said that the County couldn't award more than one franchise and tried to block it. Comcast fought hard to keep their Monopoly, but ultimately lost out. Makes you wonder about AT&T's Uverse and if it is true Fiber Optics. I know FiOS is as it is Fiber from the source to my computer. The Coax for the TV comes off of the router then goes to a splitter an on to the two TVs. As for the landline phone, it is copper from the box on the side of the house. It is Fiber Into the box and all the way to the router ( no modem ). Also, with Fiber, the speed is consistent no matter how many people are online at the time. No so with Comcast. With all the Comcast customers in the neighborhood sharing the same source, the more that log on at one time, the slower the service will be ( just like Dial up / DSL ). There is no way around it due to the restrictions of Copper.

[waldojim]

I don't think the caps are really a result of Fiber VS copper. As both can work in quite the same fashion. Consider for a moment the DS-3. That is a 45Mb/sec pipe that is all copper. But that is a point to point circuit. ADSL has always proven reliable - when installed correctly, and again shares that similarity. But Cable... that is a different animal. This is a point to multi-point circuit. A single bus that must contend with all of the chatter from the entire neighborhood. This is why Cable performance is all over the place. This is also why the cable companies are such dirtbags. They have cable transmission lines capable of delivering about 1Gb/sec, then load it down with anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 users. While that doesn't sound like a whole lot, that works out to be .3~.01Mb should everyone want on at the same time. Yet in an attempt to make you think you got something special, they offer speeds up to 100Mb/sec. Something that the network cannot realistically handle. It couldn't from the moment it was installed and had more than 100 users on it.

ATT is just being downright greedy. They run fiber to the prem, and on your outside wall have a box to drop it down to copper.

[LiveBrianD]

Around here, there is competition, but, well, not really. It's either 768kbps AT&T DSL (seriously, that's all they'll let you sign up for) or 50mbps comcast, even though comcast has bad customer service and a bad rep among neighbors. And, I suppose there is dual-up if you really want it. Every day or so, the comcast connection will cut out for a minute or two and I have no idea why. On the other hand, the 15mbps connection I pay for really is 15-17mbps. The ATT 1.5mbps connection (I signed up for this a long time ago, cancelled a year or two ago, and later checked and found they'll only let you sign up for 768kbps service now) was more like 1.3mbps, though it almost never went out. That cost about $50/month I think, the comcast one is normally $60 but for the first year $20, then second I think $30 or $40. Once that ends, my dad'll probably just call them up and threaten to cancel to get a better deal. He did that several times with directTV before.

[coastie65]

waldojim, on 04 December 2011 - 11:48 AM, said:

I don't think the caps are really a result of Fiber VS copper. As both can work in quite the same fashion. Consider for a moment the DS-3. That is a 45Mb/sec pipe that is all copper. But that is a point to point circuit. ADSL has always proven reliable - when installed correctly, and again shares that similarity. But Cable... that is a different animal. This is a point to multi-point circuit. A single bus that must contend with all of the chatter from the entire neighborhood. This is why Cable performance is all over the place. This is also why the cable companies are such dirtbags. They have cable transmission lines capable of delivering about 1Gb/sec, then load it down with anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 users. While that doesn't sound like a whole lot, that works out to be .3~.01Mb should everyone want on at the same time. Yet in an attempt to make you think you got something special, they offer speeds up to 100Mb/sec. Something that the network cannot realistically handle. It couldn't from the moment it was installed and had more than 100 users on it.

ATT is just being downright greedy. They run fiber to the prem, and on your outside wall have a box to drop it down to copper.

That is why Fiber will eventually render cable obsolete. Not because it will be, but be cause the cable companies in their greed, will not invest in the technology to bring the system up standard. Here, the first Vompany was Continental Cablevision, it then went to MediaOne. They did do so upgrades of the system. I know that some fiber was added to the system, but the only changes made on this street was the taps. The Fiber came over from the next block along a cross street about mid block and connected to a box there. With Verizon FiOS there is absolute and total freedom.

[LiveBrianD]

But how many FIOS providers are there out there? Sure, there's verizon, but all they have around here is cell phone service (I know they have home phone and DSL around the east coast though, so maybe that's why they are deploying FIOS in some of those areas).

[coastie65]

LiveBrianD, on 04 December 2011 - 05:19 PM, said:

But how many FIOS providers are there out there? Sure, there's verizon, but all they have around here is cell phone service (I know they have home phone and DSL around the east coast though, so maybe that's why they are deploying FIOS in some of those areas).

Well, Verizon did buy GTE which had operations out there among other places. Think they may have gotten rid of it though or at least some of it. FiOS is Verizon's name and Uverse is AT&T's name for their Fiber System, such as it is .

[waldojim]

Apart from the chairman of the FCC, who else do you guys think would make a good candidate for this complaint?

I have a very nice email explaining the problems I see to the FCC Chairman. So just let me know who else you think it should go to.

[LiveBrianD]

Uverse isn't available specifically where I live, but I think they've deployed it to some general parts of this area.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 04 December 2011 - 06:57 PM

[coastie65]

Don't know. Here, it was a that the County had a franchise with Comcast to provide cable TV & High Speed internet services. Verizon had already run Fiber Optics in the City of Richmond Years ago, connecting all the State Offices and I think all the folks in the financial area. Out here in the County, you have a lot of Office / Retail / Residential complexes that would benefit from Fiber optics. I think it ended up in the hands of the State Corporation Commission. The end result, was that Comcast forced Verizon to jump through a lot of regulatory hoops and meet some standards that they didn't have to meet, Verizon prevailed in the end and Comcast is losing market share in a big way.

[crazy4laptops]

I feel you, here at TN Tech, we have two internet options- Frontier and Charter. They are the monopoly here and frankly, they both suck. Both services have horrible upload speeds and prices are aimed at college kids which sounds good on paper, but the service you get is not that good.
Frontier and Charter annoy me to no end because they redirect firefox's browse-by-name queries. I called them both multiple times to get an answer and the reps could not give me a straight answer, I have a feeling they think I am crazy.

Living on campus has bad internet too, so I am in a bind because there is no 4G service here either... aka this is an internet black hole. 3G is a reliable backup, but not fast enough for primary internet demands of a student that needs to research.

But in Chattanooga, EPB fiber is being welcomed! Comcast tried to stop the flood, but the wave of awesome washed right over their measly attempt to halt 21st century progress.
Where I live, at&t was head2head against Comcast about 5 years ago, we had At&t DSL @3mbps and my parents really didn't care about cable so DSL was all I knew and it was fast enough to do email and surf. (Then my house got hit by lightning) At&t sent a technician out the next day and sorted out the mess because the strike fried something in the demarc that got wet from the rain and he also replaced our modem for free! So +1 for customer service! Then EBP came, we switched and 15/15 up/down was awesome! Then they said we'll upgrade you to 30/30 for free! (awesome!) I have yet to call EPB customer service about a problem, currently standing with 99% uptime!

I will say that Fiber-to-the-Home is the way to go! The demarc box is a little big, but I don't mind, it has a 7 hour battery backup (if not more) and it's designed to keep service active in emergency situations and for smart metering/power outage scope.

EPB is not capped and doesn't plan on it, I have not heard any stories of local Comcasters having issues with the data caps... but my cousin has had hell from comcast, if something went wrong, it was a nightmare to get Comcast to even attempt to help. Also, don't get me started on how bad comcast modems are! They are dumber than a box of rocks! I have yet to see a modem that is plug and play with a modern wifi router. I always have to power-cycle the modem, power cycle the router, wait for it to start up and have Comcast on speed-dial. Tsk Tsk Comcast!

All, in all, I am with you completely, Verizon data caps are annoying! Their 3G service is so slow too! .3mbps up and down, and it used to be 3mbps downstream before they throttled it. At&t 3G is still around 3mbps but with paltry upload though. LTE iPhone please!
I will note that Centurylink is starting to gain traction in the midwest and has some better services than at&t or comcast. But for us in TN, Centurylink is co-oping with at&t for business services. Aka at&t owns the data line, Centurylink sends you the bill, it's weird, but it works!

For everyone else under the crushing monopoly of a cap, look at 4G services, they are decent and worth causally chatting with to your service rep at your current ISP.

I believe in paying a flat fee for unlimited internet access! Internet freedom! I'll pay for the access, just let me decide how I want to use it!

[LiveBrianD]

Just change your DNS server. I hate how comcast also does that. Is EPB a small local provider? I've never heard of them.

I have comcast, and a motorola router/modem and aside from how the connection goes out for a minute or two on a daily basis it seems, it's fine. The 250GB data cap isn't an issue for me.

Why do you use 3G/4G a lot? Data caps... Did you manage to get into an unlimited plan or something?

[crazy4laptops]

LiveBrianD, on 04 December 2011 - 09:14 PM, said:

Just change your DNS server. I hate how comcast also does that. Is EPB a small local provider? I've never heard of them.
I have comcast, and a motorola router/modem and aside from how the connection goes out for a minute or two on a daily basis it seems, it's fine. The 250GB data cap isn't an issue for me.
Why do you use 3G/4G a lot? Data caps... Did you manage to get into an unlimited plan or something?

I have GoogleDNS set as network location, I use it all the time now

And those minute interruptions are probably the dynamic IP address change, it is annoying though... but you can log it and build a case to Comcast, get the supervisors involved, they'll fix it if you know how to push the buttons in the right sequence.

EPB is local- https://epbfi.com/ (you have permission to be jealous of the awesome) I can use 250GB in about 2 weeks... Comcast would hate me ;-) I used 6GB just today...

But for 3G I just have my iPhone, I use it as the primary communication tool for keeping my school life together and to pass the time on long car rides I used 1.3GB this month and I had to work hard to use that much data (I have a 2gig cap, I wish I had unlimited tho)

[LiveBrianD]

How the heck do you use that much data? What are you doing, constant bittorrent downloading?

[crazy4laptops]

LiveBrianD, on 05 December 2011 - 03:43 PM, said:

How the heck do you use that much data? What are you doing, constant bittorrent downloading?

Sorry for the delay, but no torrents here. I am part of the Microsoft Academic Alliance program and I am always downloading the new software they post on each new academic term. I think I did 30gigs this evening and maxed out my wifi card too! My wifi router said, is that all you got? and started laughing at how wimpy the card in my PC really is (Atheros 54g) But I got the software downloaded and then switched over to ethernet for the visual studio libraries (each one was 3 gb in size and there were 2 of them)

Also, I needed windows 8 updates, various downloaded videos from youtube, and finally pandora.

What I would give to have 35mbps at school... I average 1.5mbps on a good day in the dorms (usually it's .8mpbs) and 8mbps at the library. The campus-wide ping is 45ms and my home is 10-20ms and I can tell the difference! I can't hardly do any VOIP calling at school...

[LiveBrianD]

Wow, I did not think you could use that much data that way! Now I know why data caps are being implemented...

Come to think of it, how much space have you used on your HD?

[waldojim]

LiveBrianD, on 16 December 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

Wow, I did not think you could use that much data that way! Now I know why data caps are being implemented...

Come to think of it, how much space have you used on your HD?

But considering the usage, do you honestly think his demands are unreasonable?

Why should he be punished for using what he already paid for?

[crazy4laptops]

LiveBrianD, on 16 December 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

Wow, I did not think you could use that much data that way! Now I know why data caps are being implemented...

Come to think of it, how much space have you used on your HD?

Haha! yes, Comcast caps are because of me, did I forget to mention that?

I have two 100gb partitions on my laptop, nbd But how much space have I used from AA? About 60GB worth, plus the 30 I got last night.

But yes, I love unfettered data access! I'm preparing round 2 of downloading from Academic Alliance now.

Also, Windows 8 can natively mount ISO files! That makes installing these apps so much easier!

This post has been edited by crazy4laptops: 17 December 2011 - 10:53 AM

[LiveBrianD]

crazy4laptops, on 17 December 2011 - 10:53 AM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 16 December 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

Wow, I did not think you could use that much data that way! Now I know why data caps are being implemented...

Come to think of it, how much space have you used on your HD?

Haha! yes, Comcast caps are because of me, did I forget to mention that?

I have two 100gb partitions on my laptop, nbd But how much space have I used from AA? About 60GB worth, plus the 30 I got last night.

But yes, I love unfettered data access! I'm preparing round 2 of downloading from Academic Alliance now.

Also, Windows 8 can natively mount ISO files! That makes installing these apps so much easier!

But if you only have 200GB space, how do you use that much data? Do you delete stuff soon after you download it?

[crazy4laptops]

LiveBrianD, on 17 December 2011 - 02:12 PM, said:

But if you only have 200GB space, how do you use that much data? Do you delete stuff soon after you download it?

I delete the apps that I'm not gonna need like SQL Server 2005... but there's a whole other world of data out there ;-)
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