Cable companies and Trump’s FCC chair agree: Data caps are good for you

Data caps reflect "highly competitive environment," cable lobby tells FCC.

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[Matthew J.]

Fuck these guys. And you know what? Fuck the Democrats for wasting four entire years and taking this long to get around to it.

 

[gsgrego]

Look guys, businesses don't need regulation. Only non whites, poors and stupid whores(all women) need regulations!


Isn't it funny that we need regulations on vets voting, and women giving birth, but not on corporations.

 

[jezra]

In Northern California, we are fortunate to have Sonic. Reasonably priced gigabit Internet, with no data caps. They are expanding rapidly and I’m sure this will accelerate that. I just hope their growth doesn’t adversely impact the quality of their service.

In an extremely small urban slice of Norcal, Sonic provides service. For the vast majority of Norcal, Sonic is sadly not a provider. When I moved away from the North Bay, cancelling my Sonic service was the saddest part of the move.

 

[gsgrego]

Yes the FCC is in for dumb reign again, but since Ajit Pai didn't want to regulate from the federal level, the states have stepped in, which is their right. Wait till other states fill in the gap in the regulatory environment and what the ensuing lawsuits will be.

Liberal state laws are anti American and shall be deleted by the Supreme Court as they enjoy a private cruise on international waters with the new attorney general .

 

[purposelycryptic]

"Return?" In western North Carolina, getting a full 1.5 megabit DSL connection is a good day.

I moved to AZ last year, and was shocked to find out that DSL is even still in use. That technology was past its expiration date 15+ years ago.

Even 3G cellular connections hit 3Mbps on average, with a max of up to 7Mbps... and they were all shut down years ago (thanks to which none of my 2015 BMW's connected features work).

And yet ISPs insist DSL tech from over a quarter century ago is still just fine and dandy. They'd sell you internet-over-morse-code if they could get away with it, with a strict data limit measured in individual taps

10 gigataps? That will be $50,000/month, plus medical treatment and disability fees for all the operators that got carpal tunnel so bad their arms had to be amputated.

 

[jezra]

Yes the FCC is in for dumb reign again, but since Ajit Pai didn't want to regulate from the federal level, the states have stepped in, which is their right. Wait till other states fill in the gap in the regulatory environment and what the ensuing lawsuits will be.

50 corrupt state Utility Commissions will certainly be far more of a mess than just 1 corrupt federal commission.

 

[alphacorvus]

The only innovations with data caps come from the billing department. Cox is happy to sell you a 2-gigabit plan with a data cap so useless, you will hit your monthly allotment in checks notes about one hour and 23 minutes.

Fuck off.

 

[purposelycryptic]

Liberal state laws are anti American and shall be deleted by the Supreme Court as they enjoy a private cruise on international waters with the new attorney general .

Somali pirates - somehow never there when you need them...

 

[passivesmoking]

But your fuel prices will go down!

 

[Mungus the Unhyphenated]

As a networking tech, I can absolutely guarantee you that there's no benefit to you, the consumer, for data caps. All it is is an excuse to charge you more for using Internet. That's it, that's all. Whether they send you 50MB or 500GB of data a month, it literally cost them the same amount of money to offer that. An ISP does not pay for data flowing, just the bandwidth their networks can handle. They simply don't want to upgrade their slower routers.

And that extra money they're raking in from surcharges for exceeding the cap? It's not going to cover upgrading their routers, either.

In fact, due to MBA-think, the increased revenue will disincentivize them from upgrading their network, because it proves they can avoid capital expenditures and still make more money.

Ain't late-stage capitalism great?

 

[passivesmoking]

Jesus. Not this shit again.

And this time nobody's going to stop it.

 

[chiasticslide]

"Highly competitive". My entire ass.

 

[purposelycryptic]

50 corrupt state Utility Commissions will certainly be far more of a mess than just 1 corrupt federal commission.

As a wise woman once said:

I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

... We're gonna need more nukes.

 

[Kebba]

Data cap rules and such are so inherently adversarial / impossible to deal with as a consumer.

Company claims you violated a data cap, that's it. There's no magic way to prove otherwise, they bill you and you owe them more. They have no reason not to do so in the US as most of these companies are monopolies.

Example:

Years ago Comcast / Xfinity claimed I violated some data caps when I moved into my new house:

1. Comcast claimed it happened when I didn't live there. They refused to believe otherwise. They saw it in their records and that was the only truth they would believe.
2. Comcast said if they came out to investigate and found "everything is fine" (no way to know what that actually means / what the facts that would prove that are) that I would be charged even MORE.
3. The house had never had cable service (ever), the cable to the house was literally sticking out of the ground outside the building when the tech searched for it ...

It was still months before Comcast ever addressed it and for all I know they could have simply chosen never to do so.

One would think that the bare minimum requirement for somebody charging per unit of something is to follow the same requirements as scales in the supermarket or gas pumps. Prove accuracy and certify it (I hope that is true in the US also)

 

[purposelycryptic]

"Highly competitive". My entire ass.

It's missing the air quotes around 'highly' - as well as the obnoxious laughter that followed as they were snorting lines of coke out of a strippers butt-crack.

 

[rayer]

I hope every bad thing possible happens to every idiot that voted for the racist, sexist, convicted criminal

 

[CalJake]

Data caps enable "innovative plans at lower monthly rates" says no one besides the lobby group and fuckwit Republicans.

 

[Mr.Apoptosis]

USA, the land of the free!

The country where your employer controls whether you go to the toilet or not, get 3 days of vacation a year and your data is capped while paying your ass off.

Meanwhile here in communist Europe I pay €50 for unlimited 1Gbps internet including cable TV...

Well done USA! Electing the convicted felon who can control hurricanes with a sharpie.

 

[Eredu]

Over half of the country voted for this, they get what they deserve and the rest is just collateral.

 

[kvndoom]

The Chinese curse has been updated for the 21st century:

"May you live to see the consequences of what you voted for."

 

[Excvbgi89765]

I hope every bad thing possible happens to every idiot that voted for the racist, sexist, convicted criminal

How would that be possible without impacting those that did not vote Trump? What about other countries?

 

[snowman<ca>]

Most homes in the US have at best two choices in ISPs. And nothing says free market competition like a duopoly.

Even worse, one of those are often a legacy telco with coper lines, so only really have one option for high speed. The fiber provider that recently started offering service in my neighborhood base offer is twice the download speed, like 10x the upload speed, has lower latency, no data cap, and still is cheaper than the cable company's price.

 

[DorkboyDC]

State-supported/mandated enshittification. Awesome. Can't any modern tech just get better with age?

 

[mmiller7]

"highly competitive environment"???????????

What pipe dream are these people living in that they can pretend there is any competition????

 

[jezra]

Over half of the country voted for this, they get what they deserve and the rest is just collateral.

according to the latest numbers, the US has a population of 335,893,238 and Trump received 76657498. That's about 22.8% of the country.

 

[mmiller7]

Even worse, one of those are often a legacy telco with coper lines, so only really have one option for high speed. The fiber provider that recently started offering service in my neighborhood base offer is twice the download speed, like 10x the upload speed, has lower latency, no data cap, and still is cheaper than the cable company's price.

We had 2.

The copper line service was abandoned and discontinued. The cable company is now the only option.

There was a company ran fiber thru the neighborhood, but they claim we are ineligible to sign up because "we are in an area served by at least 1 other provider and therefore not unserved/underserved".

 

[darkowl]

Fuck these guys. And you know what? Fuck the Democrats for wasting four entire years and taking this long to get around to it.

The FCC chair wasn’t filled for ages leaving it 2:2 because the Republicans didn’t want to certify their first pick, Gigi Sohn.

 

[mmiller7]

according to the latest numbers, the US has a population of 335,893,238 and Trump received 76657498. That's about 22.8% of the country.

The problem with this statistic is not 100% of the population voted...so it misrepresents what happened.

I am happy my state went blue...but we still will have to deal with the shit-show thanks to everyone else.

 

[black_box]

Tell me more about how hard it is for you...

Comcast (CMCSA)
Annual Gross Profit
2023 $45.62B
2022 $44.951B
2021 $42.316B
2020 $37.334B
2019 $41.695B
2018 $36.721B
2017 $34.225B

 

[Chuckstar]

"We have always been at war with Eastasia."

If they say it, it becomes true.

 

[SubWoofer2]

"Data caps have a negative impact on all consumers but the effects are felt most acutely in low-income households

I'm behind the play here. Wasn't the vote Trump thing all about the voiceless being able to express themselves as meanwhile the American middle class evaporates and working-class jobs become minimum wage bullshit jobs, no craftsmen? A voice for the angry poor?

 

[poltroon]

And yet, I am certain that none of the people advocating for data caps have ever chosen it for themselves if they had any alternatives. I guess they just don't like saving money.

 

[CPX]

I'm sure the streaming services will love this.

 

[nadimz]

"Requiring all users to pay for unlimited data would raise prices for consumers who use little data,"

In Spain we pay 20$ for 1 Gbps. That's a low price by Spanish standards (and we are not part of the wealthy countries in Europe). Data caps don't exist and there are at least 5 decent providers to choose from. So, the above statement is certainly not a fact and looks like the providers are just trying to hold on to any mechanism that allows them to charge their customers more.

 

[dpjf123]

While we are usually safely under the data cap we have already blown through it this month thanks to my gaming son and the Call of Duty release. And of course this is 11 months after we used our "1 month over" freebie. So we'll pay, and be in the penalty box for another twelve months.

Very happy for Comcast as they celebrate their "biggest week in internet history": https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/30/24283801/comcast-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-large-downloads

 

[ardentsonata]

In Northern California, we are fortunate to have Sonic. Reasonably priced gigabit Internet, with no data caps. They are expanding rapidly and I’m sure this will accelerate that. I just hope their growth doesn’t adversely impact the quality of their service.

Sonic has been telling me I'll be in their service area soon for 4 years now I don't have much hope when I only have a single provider of high speed internet in the bay area.

 

[Koga Onutalepo]

Sadly, consumer groups will likely find they can't reason Republicans out of a position they were bribed into.

 

[cubemoss]

This is what people voted for.

This is what slightly more people voted for than the tens of millions of us who voted against it.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

If this article were about the Starlink ISP, the title and subheading would be about "Elon Musk's Starlink'. It would be nice if Ars applied the same treatment with this article.

"Wall St owned Cable companies love data caps"
Sadly, as long as it is practically illegal to vote for a politician who isn't sponsored by Wall St or Wall St owned Telecoms, the problem won't be changing any time soon.

"Wahh, why is Ars always talking about Musk."

Then when Musk isn't even mentioned, you fuckers still throw his name into it.

Piss. Off.