OH SHIT, SON! The FCC just redefined broadband to be 25Mbps and up. ISPs pissed as hell, Republicans - Polidicks

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;47037961]0.6Mbps represent. That's the "fastest speed in my area" according to at&t. I never watch youtube videos above 360p, and I still have to let them load. Sometimes I watch in 240p when the internet is really slow. Family of 4. Our house has 2 iPads, 2 Ipods, one desktop ,two laptops, and a smart TV. Do you really think 76KB/s is enough to go around? This probably won't do anything in my area, but a man can dream. As long as others don't have to suffer through this injustice, I'll be satisfied.[/QUOTE] I remember when we had a 256kbps ADSL connection when I still lived with my parents. I have 3 little sisters and 2 of them were very fond of torrenting 24/7. Everytime someone wanted to do something with the internet, we had to tell them to stop (which they "sneakily" resumed after a short while, destroying the internet-connection for others) and eventually I just throttled them to 1/4 of the actual speed just so we could pretend we weren't on 33,6kbps-like speed anymore. Over the years we did increase the speed to 24mbps eventually, but man those first years fucking sucked. Slow internet sucks man, I hope it gets better for you. My experience with that slow, nigh-useless internet connection made me always target the highest speed I can get, with little thought put into the price.

[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;47038828]If we're gonna debate that data caps make sense you're obviously backwards. Data caps have never made sense since 2010 really. As much as I hate saying this but they should take a page from some other countries. [/QUOTE] Data caps are just a way for companies to balance how much [I]you cost them[/I]. Transit is expensive for providers still, the 25Mbit/s connection would do 7.5TiB of data a month. Personally I think ISPs should start charging the same way colos do, either flat-rate, or on the 95th. You get a 1Gbit symmetrical connection, and depending on your average (and therefore "total") use of the transfer, is your bill.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47038939]Data caps are just a way for companies to balance how much [I]you cost them[/I]. Transit is expensive for providers still, the 25Mbit/s connection would do 7.5TiB of data a month. Personally I think ISPs should start charging the same way colos do, either flat-rate, or on the 95th. You get a 1Gbit symmetrical connection, and depending on your average (and therefore "total") use of the transfer, is your bill.[/QUOTE] Here in the Netherlands datacaps are not a thing. Currently wr pay around €65 for TV (like 50 channels), radio, telephone and Internet, all in one package. We pay for 180/18 down/upload and I actually get about 97% of what is advertised. I hosted several gameservers and I download about 400 GB of bullshit every month (this is only my PC), and they homestly couldn't care less. Data caps are just to make people pay for higher plans / pay a lot of money if they go over a certain amount of GBs per month. Same with mobile providers btw

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;47037961]0.6Mbps represent. That's the "fastest speed in my area" according to at&t. I never watch youtube videos above 360p, and I still have to let them load. Sometimes I watch in 240p when the internet is really slow. Family of 4. Our house has 2 iPads, 2 Ipods, one desktop ,two laptops, and a smart TV. Do you really think 76KB/s is enough to go around? This probably won't do anything in my area, but a man can dream. As long as others don't have to suffer through this injustice, I'll be satisfied.[/QUOTE] Got the same problem, except my Router constantly disconnects itself, usually during a good video or game session :v:

I remember 2mb/s was acceptable like 8 years ago, and that's regarding Poland which is just about half a decade behind. 4mb/s in this day and age is a fucking joke.

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;47038957]Here in the Netherlands datacaps are not a thing. Currently wr pay around €65 for TV (like 50 channels), radio, telephone and Internet, all in one package. We pay for 180/18 down/upload and I actually get about 97% of what is advertised. I hosted several gameservers and I download about 400 GB of bullshit every month (this is only my PC), and they homestly couldn't care less. Data caps are just to make people pay for higher plans / pay a lot of money if they go over a certain amount of GBs per month. Same with mobile providers btw[/QUOTE] I'm not saying data caps are a [I]good thing[/I], just saying why they exist. I'd be willing to bet you have a 1-2TiB softcap, meaning they'll call you up and go "what's up". Near me there's fiber that runs 100/100 for $35-50/month (depending on the exact area you live) and 1000/1000 for $65-100/month. Both of those have a soft cap of 1TB, and when I asked the owner of the company "Are you worried about it saturating your backbone?" he said "Well, we don't really worry about the datacaps right now, even if you sat and torrented day and night it wouldn't be a problem" (Paraphrasing, this was over a year ago) But no matter what, if you actually sat there and used that 180mbit for a month straight, you'd get a call. [editline]30th January 2015[/editline] And that's residential connection, if you really are a bandwidth hog you can spend something like $400/mo for 1000/1000, unmetered transfer with an SLA. Pretty good deal if you live with 2-3 other guys actually. (For reference, 1Gbit unmetered can total near 300TiB a month each way, so 600TiB total).

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47038939]Data caps are just a way for companies to balance how much [I]you cost them[/I]. Transit is expensive for providers still, the 25Mbit/s connection would do 7.5TiB of data a month. Personally I think ISPs should start charging the same way colos do, either flat-rate, or on the 95th. You get a 1Gbit symmetrical connection, and depending on your average (and therefore "total") use of the transfer, is your bill.[/QUOTE] Or, and here's a groundbreaking thing, let people use their unlimited connections truly unlimited. If user A is paying 75/mo for an unlimited 50mb/s connection they have every right to saturate that connection in both directions 24/7/365. They are paying for an [i]unlimited[/i] connection at that speed. It's downright deceptive for companies to put 'ULIMITED INTERNETS' on the blurb and then in the fine print nobody can read go '250gb data cap lol'.

t[QUOTE=TestECull;47039137]Or, and here's a groundbreaking thing, let people use their unlimited connections truly unlimited. If user A is paying 75/mo for an unlimited 50mb/s connection they have every right to saturate that connection in both directions 24/7/365. They are paying for an [i]unlimited[/i] connection at that speed. It's downright deceptive for companies to put 'ULIMITED INTERNETS' on the blurb and then in the fine print nobody can read go '250gb data cap lol'.[/QUOTE] Mobile phone providers are guilty of that I'm sure, but I don't see Comcast, CTL, or most any other provider actually saying "unlimited" (The proper term would be unmetered anyway...). Most providers actually make it fairly clear in their ToS the amount of bandwidth you can use. Also, what I said earlier about the $400. That's for a enterprise class connection, that's legit SLA unmetered bandwidth; and it's why it costs so much. I'm not completely defending data caps, I think often they're anti-consumer in nature, especially when companies charge $1+/GiB for going over; hence the reason I think we should move to flat or 95th billing that is competitive.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47039015]I'm not saying data caps are a [I]good thing[/I], just saying why they exist. I'd be willing to bet you have a 1-2TiB softcap, meaning they'll call you up and go "what's up". Near me there's fiber that runs 100/100 for $35-50/month (depending on the exact area you live) and 1000/1000 for $65-100/month. Both of those have a soft cap of 1TB, and when I asked the owner of the company "Are you worried about it saturating your backbone?" he said "Well, we don't really worry about the datacaps right now, even if you sat and torrented day and night it wouldn't be a problem" (Paraphrasing, this was over a year ago) But no matter what, if you actually sat there and used that 180mbit for a month straight, you'd get a call. [editline]30th January 2015[/editline] And that's residential connection, if you really are a bandwidth hog you can spend something like $400/mo for 1000/1000, unmetered transfer with an SLA. Pretty good deal if you live with 2-3 other guys actually. (For reference, 1Gbit unmetered can total near 300TiB a month each way, so 600TiB total).[/QUOTE] There's a FUP, but never got a call and probably never will. This is not America.

I've never had a cap on anything. I've done 100gb+ daily on my phone even

[QUOTE=TestECull;47039137]Or, and here's a groundbreaking thing, let people use their unlimited connections truly unlimited. If user A is paying 75/mo for an unlimited 50mb/s connection they have every right to saturate that connection in both directions 24/7/365. They are paying for an [i]unlimited[/i] connection at that speed. It's downright deceptive for companies to put 'ULIMITED INTERNETS' on the blurb and then in the fine print nobody can read go '250gb data cap lol'.[/QUOTE] No network has been built like this, ever. At any given moment a majority of connections are not even used. Networks are built to handle [I]peak traffic[/I], not the theoretical maximum.

Meanwhile, germany still defines broadband as 1 mbps or more :(

I love how ISP's have the gall to argue that "our customers don't actually want any higher internet speeds"

[QUOTE=MoonlessNight;47035259]Broadband as in wide bandwidth? No, you mean high data transmission speed. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Bandwidth.svg/542px-Bandwidth.svg.png[/img] This is bandwidth. It has nothing to do with your Internet speed. This is important. You are using the word wrong. [sp]Also, not being on fiber-optics since the early 2000's LOL[/sp][/QUOTE] How shallow minded are you? The notion of bandwidth has a different meaning when it comes to network communication compared to signal and control theory. Sure, it's nice that you've just finished a college course in signal proccessing, but there are other fields out there.

[QUOTE=Cyberuben;47039329]There's a FUP, but never got a call and probably never will. This is not America.[/QUOTE] Network traffic costs no matter where you live, Europe probably manages lower fees because the last mile deployment is just [I]smaller[/I]. Either way only recently did it become so that delivering traffic to Europe was a cheap as the States for CDNs: [t]http://s.gvid.me/s/2015/01/30/1422627283-2ac.png[/t]. I'm willing to bet if you actually used a considerable amount of your bandwidth for a long enough time, you'd get a call, 53TiB is a lot of data.

Sucks here in Nebraska, i get fucking 2mbs per sec, but THANK GOD the FCC decided to do something about it. Actually, a few months ago, i only got 300 kbs per sec.

I used to be a republican and then I realized that the only reason I was was because my family is and then I realized the political views of my family are usually really, really dumb

[QUOTE=MoonlessNight;47039543]No network has been built like this, ever. At any given moment a majority of connections are not even used. Networks are built to handle [I]peak traffic[/I], not the theoretical maximum.[/QUOTE] I honestly don't care. If they're going to advertise an unlimited connection at X speed for Y price and they do not deliver a truly unlimited connection at X speed for Y price they are in the wrong and should be dealt with in the courts. If it's truly too expensive to offer everyone unlimited internet [i]they shouldn't fucking claim it's unlimited in the marketing spiel![/i] They commit to giving their customers unlimited throughput the moment they put that word on the brochure. Weasling out of it in the fine print is downright deceptive, unethical, and should be illegal. If they can't actually do that they shouldn't be allowed to claim it on the commercial. If they do anyway, I don't care what fine print legalese they apply to the contract, they should be fined. Unlimited internet is just that. Unlimited. If I buy an unlimited 25 down 5 up connection for 60/mo I am entitled to saturate that connection for an entire month. If their network can't handle that they shouldn't fucking sell me that plan in the first place. Besides, if they weren't lazing about rolling in dough for 20 years their networks could actually handle consumer grade connections at full saturation 24/7. The main reason most ISP networks can't handle it is because the lazy, greedy fucks have refused to upgrade it in almost a decade. Which, hopefully, the Title II classification will help change.

Fucking nice. I completely agree with what they're saying. I mean, as someone who gets 65Mbps, connections like 2Mbps would make me want to through my PC out the window.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47043071]I honestly don't care. If they're going to advertise an unlimited connection at X speed for Y price and they do not deliver a truly unlimited connection at X speed for Y price they are in the wrong and should be dealt with in the courts. If it's truly too expensive to offer everyone unlimited internet [i]they shouldn't fucking claim it's unlimited in the marketing spiel![/i] [/QUOTE] I totally agree, if an ISP says they're offering unlimited (unmetered) internet access, they should face the repercussions of a user using that connection 24/7 at full peak; and if they say "Unlimited" and then specify a limit in small print, they shouldn't be able to charge for going over the cap. That said, I think ISPs should move to a flat-rate or 95th billing method, this would mean a much more straightforward and transparent billing process: you pay for [I]what you use[/I]. I think this would be more fair too, someone who uses the internet less would just pay less, and if you used a lot of traffic, you'd simply pay more. I obviously think the ISP should give direct ways to monitor this, perhaps show the traffic log at the modem's IP ([url=http://s.gvid.me/s/2015/01/30/bwgraph.png]it would look like this[/url]), and you could easily calculate the costs of it. For example, if it was $4 per Mb/s (that's fairly cheap mind you) then the cost at the end of the month would be $2.196 for your internet usage that month.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47044527]I totally agree, if an ISP says they're offering unlimited (unmetered) internet access, they should face the repercussions of a user using that connection 24/7 at full peak; and if they say "Unlimited" and then specify a limit in small print, they shouldn't be able to charge for going over the cap. That said, I think ISPs should move to a flat-rate or 95th billing method, this would mean a much more straightforward and transparent billing process: you pay for [I]what you use[/I]. I think this would be more fair too, someone who uses the internet less would just pay less, and if you used a lot of traffic, you'd simply pay more. I obviously think the ISP should give direct ways to monitor this, perhaps show the traffic log at the modem's IP ([url=http://s.gvid.me/s/2015/01/30/bwgraph.png]it would look like this[/url]), and you could easily calculate the costs of it. For example, if it was $4/Mb (that's fairly cheap mind you) then the cost at the end of the month would be $2.196 for your internet usage that month.[/QUOTE] That is extremely expensive.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47044527]I totally agree, if an ISP says they're offering unlimited (unmetered) internet access, they should face the repercussions of a user using that connection 24/7 at full peak; and if they say "Unlimited" and then specify a limit in small print, they shouldn't be able to charge for going over the cap. That said, I think ISPs should move to a flat-rate or 95th billing method, this would mean a much more straightforward and transparent billing process: you pay for [I]what you use[/I]. I think this would be more fair too, someone who uses the internet less would just pay less, and if you used a lot of traffic, you'd simply pay more. I obviously think the ISP should give direct ways to monitor this, perhaps show the traffic log at the modem's IP ([URL="http://s.gvid.me/s/2015/01/30/bwgraph.png"]it would look like this[/URL]), and you could easily calculate the costs of it. For example, if it was $4/Mb (that's fairly cheap mind you) then the cost at the end of the month would be $2.196 for your internet usage that month.[/QUOTE] Or just set monthly fee for a set amount of bandwidth, regardless of the amount of data used. Seems to work fine elsewhere.

So when does this stuff take effect? If I missed something in the article, then I'm dumb.

[QUOTE=Roll_Program;47036372]Nothing will change, it won't get faster, companies will just start saying stuff like "high speed internet" instead of "fast broadband internet".[/QUOTE] BTW, to you and to everyone else with this sentiment, "broadband" has a specific definition in US telecommunications regulations: [QUOTE]As arbitrary as the 25/3 numbers sound, they're not picked totally out of thin air: they're based on a clause in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which states that broadband must "enable users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology".[/QUOTE] [URL="http://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-care-that-the-fcc-is-trying-to-redefine-1681592330"]Source: Gizmodo[/URL] So, they can rename their shit to something else for marketing purposes and consumers will probably fall for it, but if they intimate that what they're offering is equivalent to "broadband" as the Telecom Act defines it when they're not anywhere near 25Mbps, and the FCC/FTC hear about it, [I]wham[/I].

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47044527]I totally agree, if an ISP says they're offering unlimited (unmetered) internet access, they should face the repercussions of a user using that connection 24/7 at full peak; and if they say "Unlimited" and then specify a limit in small print, they shouldn't be able to charge for going over the cap. That said, I think ISPs should move to a flat-rate or 95th billing method, this would mean a much more straightforward and transparent billing process: you pay for [I]what you use[/I]. I think this would be more fair too, someone who uses the internet less would just pay less, and if you used a lot of traffic, you'd simply pay more. I obviously think the ISP should give direct ways to monitor this, perhaps show the traffic log at the modem's IP ([url=http://s.gvid.me/s/2015/01/30/bwgraph.png]it would look like this[/url]), and you could easily calculate the costs of it. For example, if it was $4/Mb (that's fairly cheap mind you) then the cost at the end of the month would be $2.196 for your internet usage that month.[/QUOTE] 4 gigs per megabyte is ridiculously expensive. At that price reinstalling my copy of Fallout: New Vegas(Base game is 7gb, but I also own all the DLC, so all told it's a 12gb download) would cost me roughly $48,000 dollars. Forty Eight Thousand US Dollars to reinstall a video game. Ludicrous. Rappers wouldn't even pay that sort of dosh for a net connection and they're legendarily bad with money. Surely you typoed and meant to say '$4/gb'. Even that's pricey as hell. Knocks a few zeroes off the equation and drops the cost of that FNV reinstall to $48. That's a dollar shy of what I fucking paid for it when I preordered it four years ago. Still ludicrous, but it's also starting to approach the sort of overage charges we're seeing on mobile networks. If you're determined to use a 'pay as you use' scheme for internet pricing a reasonable price is about a nickle a gigabyte. I know it sounds like fuck all, but stop and think for a minute. We're sending TONS of these things through the pipe. It adds up. At this price reinstalling New Vegas would run me about 60 cents. AT my current speeds I can pull about 350gb in a month, which equates to around $17 a month. Reasonable, add in a $20 'you have a connection' fee and it's not too bad. It actually ends up about half what I actually pay, which is good, and I bet you're wondering why I'm not in favor of this sort of model. I'll tell ya. Heavy usage users are outnumbered by facebook checkers 10 or 15 to one. The extra costs above the basic monthly fee I might incur downloading half my steam library in one big binge is subsidized by the bandwidth my farmer neighbors pay for [i]and never even use[/i]. That's not liable to change anytime soon, even with things like Netflix gaining popularity. You try to implement a 'pay as you use' scheme and ISPs will go bankrupt practically overnight. There just aren't enough users like us to keep the lights on without them charging prices so ridiculous nobody'll pay. It's better for all of us if we use the current model of 'You give us 40-80 a month, we give you a connection at a speed, go nuts". And, again, if they want to offer unlimited connections they need to be fully prepared for everyone on that node to be a user like me who loves to download/stream vast quantities of data at all hours. If they can't they need to either A: stop calling it unlimited, or more preferrably, B: Upgrade their fucking network for the first time in over a decade.

[QUOTE=TestECull;47049245]4 gigs per megabyte is ridiculously expensive. At that price reinstalling my copy of Fallout: New Vegas(Base game is 7gb, but I also own all the DLC, so all told it's a 12gb download) would cost me roughly $48,000 dollars. Forty Eight Thousand US Dollars to reinstall a video game. Ludicrous. Rappers wouldn't even pay that sort of dosh for a net connection and they're legendarily bad with money. Surely you typoed and meant to say '$4/gb'. [/QUOTE] I'm misunderstood, when I say $4/Mb I mean the average usage per second over the month, 1Mbs ($4) would be the equivalent of 305GiB a month, effectively $0.013/GiBmo. 19GiB/mo translates in to 62.1 kb/s AVG, meaning you'd pay $0.25 by the end of the month for just that download. Since all customers on Comcast get a 300GiB cap with no regard to the bandwidth bracket they're in, it becomes hard to calculate the $/GiB, I pay 0.23~ per GiB with Comcast right now, in effect. [editline]31st January 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=TestECull;47049245]You try to implement a 'pay as you use' scheme and ISPs will go bankrupt practically overnight. There just aren't enough users like us to keep the lights on without them charging prices so ridiculous nobody'll pay. It's better for all of us if we use the current model of 'You give us 40-80 a month, we give you a connection at a speed, go nuts". And, again, if they want to offer unlimited connections they need to be fully prepared for everyone on that node to be a user like me who loves to download/stream vast quantities of data at all hours. If they can't they need to either A: stop calling it unlimited, or more preferrably, B: Upgrade their fucking network for the first time in over a decade.[/QUOTE] A Connection fee plus the monthly usage would probably be the best course of action, and ISPs would do fine; colo facilities use this method (95th, flat rate, unmetered) for bandwidth almost everywhere.

[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;47037961]0.6Mbps represent. That's the "fastest speed in my area" according to at&t. I never watch youtube videos above 360p, and I still have to let them load. Sometimes I watch in 240p when the internet is really slow. Family of 4. Our house has 2 iPads, 2 Ipods, one desktop ,two laptops, and a smart TV. Do you really think 76KB/s is enough to go around? This probably won't do anything in my area, but a man can dream. As long as others don't have to suffer through this injustice, I'll be satisfied.[/QUOTE] My grandmother has AT&T, I was visiting last summer and her download speed was 0.16Mb/s We called AT&T to look into it, their guy remoted into the computer, hung up on us, closed the chat window, then closed the remote session. [editline]31st January 2015[/editline] I ended up doing everything on my phone, also through AT&T. Went over my 300Mb monthly limit 3 times in the week and a half I was there.

I'm quite sure the most I've downloaded in one month was over a terrabyte, including countless broken ISOs (legitimate ones) from a lot of different websites, trying to aquire a Windows 8 disk for a PC that had to be reinstalled, syncing 500 GB of my music and movies over the internet using OwnCloud, but after syncing everything I found out that the folder was in the wrong location on my disk, decided to move it, OwnCloud said "Fuck you" and had to redownload all the files because it would corrupt all my files if I manually moved them into the new folder. Reason I had to do this over internet was because OwnCloud uses an URL to access the server, and since I wanted to run it on my laptop, which wouldn't be guaranteed to be in the same network at all times, I had to use the WAN IP. And didn't get a call nor email from ISP. All fine.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;47049334]I'm misunderstood, when I say $4/Mb I mean the average usage per second over the month, 1Mbs ($4) would be the equivalent of 305GiB a month, effectively $0.013/GiBmo. 19GiB/mo translates in to 62.1 kb/s AVG, meaning you'd pay $0.25 by the end of the month for just that download. Since all customers on Comcast get a 300GiB cap with no regard to the bandwidth bracket they're in, it becomes hard to calculate the $/GiB, I pay 0.23~ per GiB with Comcast right now, in effect. [editline]31st January 2015[/editline] A Connection fee plus the monthly usage would probably be the best course of action, and ISPs would do fine; colo facilities use this method (95th, flat rate, unmetered) for bandwidth almost everywhere.[/QUOTE] it's still incredibly expensive, my connection is 50 MB/s for $50 with no data cap

[QUOTE=hydrated;47049974]it's still incredibly expensive, my connection is 50 MB/s for $50 with no data cap[/QUOTE] Unless you have an SLA that specified you actually have an unmetered connection, you have a softcap. No seriously, every major ISP has a soft cap, it might be high (<=10TiB), but if you pass it you will get a call. Seriously, I dare you to upload and download at your max speed for a whole month, you'll get a call barely 1/3 into the month. I don't really see why you would object to having 1Gbit/s connection to every house, a fairly inexpensive connection fee ($20/mo perhaps?) and then paying for what you use.