I almost made a post about this, but anytime I voice my technology concerns on lj only two people express an interest in the subject-with you being one of them. Anyways, it's obvious that these test markets were selected in regions where no comparable (non-DSL) alternative exists. Time Warner customers have no option but to live with it, or upgrade to business class service where no cap exists; yet. Part of me wants to see this pass so Verizon will have more reason to bring FIOS into the Carolinas, but I also realize that if this tiered-pricing model works for Time Warner it will only be a matter of time before the other ISPs jump onboard too. We all should have seen this coming when the key telecom companies sought to place "premium access" restrictions on websites and streaming content. Just wait until kids start breaking WEP/WPA encryption to run their peer-to-peer clients from their neighbor's network. ohai utilization fees, sup?
Yeah I know, usually my technology rants aren't about anything people care about but they'd do well not to ignore this. I hadn't thought about just jacking someone else's wireless, that'd be pretty funny. I was over at the house I'm about to start renting checking for open wireless. You can even have routers running tomato firmware jump on another network and route select traffic through it's gateway.
I honestly don't think it'll fly, at least not at that low of a cap. People's memories can't be so short that they don't recall when you had to buy crummy dial up access by the hour.
I think the FCC or someone will have to get involved when Vonage is asking why their VOIP service counts towards the cap and TWCs doesn't. Or a few years from now when pretty much everything streaming online is HD. I mean I guess people think this only effects pirates but streaming content is going to eat bandwidth more than anything at that point.
I sat in on yesterday's city council meeting, but arrived too late to act as a speaker from the floor. Luckily, there were a few other individuals who also expressed their concerns with the changes and the impact it might have on online habits, web innovation, and global communication. I worry, however, that those opinions weren't conveyed in a manner that non-technical advocates could easily understand. I was also surprised to learn that some members of the community actually favor this change, claiming that they already pay too much for the minimal broadband access they require. Thankfully, one local Klingon-- err IT business owner countered that remark with a strong example of how the data caps are designed to be exceeded; explaining how one can generate up to 17GB of web traffic per month from basic surfing that is devoid of P2P downloads or streaming content. That amount alone would exceed the limitations set by Time Warner's two lowest tiers of service. To me, the reasons behind the changes are obvious. You have a cable/VOIP
( ... )
The best way is to have a router that tracks that type of thing, otherwise its kind of hard. For my house we do about 50 GB a month and while I'm a huge nerd and download stuff all the time its not really as much as if I had a Netflix membership or was on Hulu a lot.
Right now 40 GB would probably be ok for most people, but what I'm thinking about is the future and the future is everything in HD from youtube to hulu and so on. And those streams eat it up quick. And 40 GB is the high end, my parents have Roadrunner lite which would cut theres down to 10-20 which is really nothing.
If I were on a network by myself with nothing running I would run a few tests for streaming content to see for instance how much an episode of The Office in HD from Hulu would use.
I don't really know anything about DSL, but I've considered switching and just dealing with it. Is it really that much slower? I can download at around 700-800kb/s right now.
Comments 7
Reply
I honestly don't think it'll fly, at least not at that low of a cap. People's memories can't be so short that they don't recall when you had to buy crummy dial up access by the hour.
I think the FCC or someone will have to get involved when Vonage is asking why their VOIP service counts towards the cap and TWCs doesn't. Or a few years from now when pretty much everything streaming online is HD. I mean I guess people think this only effects pirates but streaming content is going to eat bandwidth more than anything at that point.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Right now 40 GB would probably be ok for most people, but what I'm thinking about is the future and the future is everything in HD from youtube to hulu and so on. And those streams eat it up quick. And 40 GB is the high end, my parents have Roadrunner lite which would cut theres down to 10-20 which is really nothing.
If I were on a network by myself with nothing running I would run a few tests for streaming content to see for instance how much an episode of The Office in HD from Hulu would use.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment