FCC Republican opposes regulation of data caps with analogy to coffee refills
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You should object as data caps are BS. Period. There are lots of ISP's, that have much faster speed (especially upload) than Comcast, that don't have them and execs have said they aren't required so any data cap is not a "legitimate traffic management tool". Comcast already uses your language to justify their data caps which is all about additional profit, not needed.
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The fact children can't complete school assignments without internet and many professionals can't work without internet would seem to indicate it's a utility.
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What's more amazing is how they still get voted into office by said redred voter base.
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Koga Onutalepo
Ars Legatus Legionis
Another reason caps exist - to trick the simple-minded into thinking the ISP exempting its in-house services (but not their competitors') from the cap (aka "zero-rating") is a "benefit" to the consumer when it's really an arbitrary anticompetitive fraud.
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Not just that, but it's a pretty scummy assumption to make that shooting over spending limits is due to frittering away resources on frivolous trivialities. Working from home, updating operating systems, Zoom meetings across state and country lines - all of this takes up bandwith, not to mention what happens when you share it with someone else.
But assuming that the less abundant have poor resource management and thus should not be subsidized or empathized with has always been a key tactic in the Republican playbook. Longtime Ars critic Richard Bennett often claimed that the only reason anyone would want a lot of stable bandwith would be because they were losers playing World of Warcraft or pirating adult material. It's a boast that he's gradually retired over the years. Telling the American public that they don't deserve to be able to work from home is not something that goes over well in a post-2020 world. (Then again, this is the exact some sort of mindset that's also been pushing back against flexi-work arrangements. Won't need stable home Internet if you can't work from home...)
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And here i thought that having only one option and no choice is the communism /s
Are they also saying you do not need competition and that it is wasteful ?
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It's not really true that there's really NO marginal cost to transmitting an additional bit of data for an ISP. It's very, very, small but it's not actually zero. There's a very modest increase in electrical usage and, probably more significantly, ISPs have to negotiate their own peering deals with other ISPs and a residential ISP that has lots of download, little upload, and essentially no transit likely has to pay more to connect to other ISPs' networks the more data they consume.
I'm sure data caps, while ineffective as network management, do have a retardant effect on overall data consumption. People will use less when the consumption is metered. While it likely has a very minor effect, it probably does actually reduce expenses for ISPs of their customers use less data.
In a robust, competitive market, some ISPs might actually take advantage of that to offer lower price services with data caps. Of course, in the real world, data caps are mostly just a way to raise profit margins without improving the customer experience in any way because customers don't actually have any choice in most markets.
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In fact, it can't stop going up. The entire economic system in place for the US literally falls apart without it (hence the 'die for your economy' push during the pandemic). The engine of capitalism only runs when there's a constant accumulation of capital. Which is also why, when there isn't sufficient production of 'new' capital, the system is forced to cannibalized society and existing 'capital' to sustain itself.
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Those aren't caps. That's throttling. Caps are simply mindless, arbitrary allotments of data traffic, to be used by the consumer at any time of the day. Which is why caps have nothing to do with proper network management and have never had anything to do with it.
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As a person living outside US, I can only marvel on the stupidity of not having that competition.
I live in capital city of small country and there are 121 ISPs including small local ones. Smaller cities have around 50. I do not know all options I have, but it is more than a dozen.
Source:
https://rychlost.cz/pripojeni/
My point, it should be easy to start a local isps and have a competition. That's only way how to push the big ones to have half decent prices and services. I pay equivalent of 20 usd for 200Mb/s symmetrical with no data cap.
There is no point in trying to change the big isps in any other way than itroducing competition. Seems that it somehow got "forgotten".
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And, the rates are determined by actual costs, which must be properly documented for accuracy. My water company only charges the actual cost of processing and delivery, plus a heavily regulated profit margin. Half of the time my usage is so little I barely pay more than the minimum connection fee.
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It doesn't matter. If they only thing they did was watch hulu all day long the data cap would still be unjustified and gross.
The coffee analogy is really bad, it's one of those sinister little comparisons that almost makes sense if you don't think about it or have no understanding about how the internet works. Coffee is a commodity, like data, right? And if a coffee shop had to give away coffee for free they'd lose money!
But data isn't an expense in that way (not really), bandwidth is, and ISPs already limit and price tier bandwidth.
The "consumers should have the right to buy capped plans" is really gross too for the same reason. Oh, data capped plans are cheaper because they're more limited, right? More options, etc. Good? Except that's not real. Because data caps are entirely artificial, instead of capped plans being cheaper, it's just that unlimited plans get more expensive.
In places where the monopolists don't use data caps to extract revenue, we don't see everyone trapped only paying premium prices for unlimited internet, we see them paying at worst slightly more and often not even that.
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So now it's official: Republicans in the FCC have traded in their brains for overused coffee grounds, and they really like that state!
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The issue here really shouldn't be "but was it the homework that put them over the edge, or something else that was more data-intensive?". Instead why aren't we looking at the fact that ISPs are charging for data that is getting used at any and all times that that modem is connected. Even just routine communications between your modem and the outside world can put your carefully managed data use outside of the allowed envelope. No device, homework related or not, needs to be connected.
And the fact that ISPs can inject whatever they want into your data streams (remember, they are an information service provider that provides altered content, not a telecommunications provider that only provides what the user asks for in an unaltered format) means that even though they are giving you a data cap, they actual amount of data you want that you can access is far, far less. Network overhead aside, you don't have absolute control over the amount of data coming down your pipe. Just look at the amount of ads, scrolling videos, embeds, and other shit that's going on.
Data caps are regressive and oppressive, regardless of the use-case of the customer.
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That is the part that is ignored all the time. I get QoS where available bandwidth is split equally between users (no preferential treatment other than what each user enforces on their end), but what is the additional cost of our internet tubes being empty, vs. half empty, vs full.
Yes, switches and routers will consume a bit more electricity but that is going to be utterly insignificant amount. So how can they justify caps?
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I really feel for you guys in the US, I signed up for Internet in Tokyo when I moved apartment recently and didn't even bother shopping around, about $45 per month for 1Gigabit, no caps. I don't know if I actually get that as my devices performance are the limiting factor (really need to upgrade some of them). There was also 10Gigabit for just a little bit more, but honestly I didn't know how I would use it.
I really hope you get it sorted out because even though I'm in Japan your crappy Internet providers cause me lots of pain in my jobon the an international network helpdesk. When our US sites go offline it's like pulling teeth from a tiger trying to get information from the US carriers.
I really hope you get it sorted out because even though I'm in Japan your crappy Internet providers cause me lots of pain in my jobon the an international network helpdesk. When our US sites go offline it's like pulling teeth from a tiger trying to get information from the US carriers.
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What is being suggested is to set a data cap between say 5-11pm of 200 GB. The rest of the time, unlimited data.
It would work as a data cap to help network maintenance, albeit an awful one for users. Hey kids, time to go to bed so you can get up at 5am to do homework, because daddy installed a 100GB game over dinner last night.
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Well, about free coffee refills, in Sweden you almost always get a "påtår" (refill) when you buy a cup of coffee at a café 
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Same here inside the Russian Economic Union. Unlimited symmetrical fibre-optic costs me around $15 per month, along with a 4G smartphone family plan for $12.50 a month. The 4G is not unlimited but we have never hit the limit.
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Exactly as others are pointing out. A single game can be a significant amount of a monthly cap. And the solution to allow you to ”live reasonably” is offered by the gatekeeper for either a 1 time charge per month or an annual plan of being a “high end user.’ And by that I mean regular person that likes to game and is forced to purchase games the only method they are available in today’s world since physical media doesn’t really exist. Or if it does, the moment you go to install ifrom it, a window pops up stating ‘This game needs the internet to be able to download the other 86-140 GB of data since the most we can distribute on a Blu-Ray is 25 GB and we don’t want to wait to distribute this game completely and bug free because we (the publisher) need to see immediately how sales are doing instead of it being collected over a month or two (timeframe to have ‘finished game‘ through manufacturing and distribution throughout the world).’
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Dumbass take. Serving more coffee would actually cost the diner more money; there is no meaningful cost associated with having no data caps. As for what would happen? Well, just look at the scores of countries that don't have data caps!
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Not going to happen.
The USA is now a full on oligarchy not much different than Russia.
This is what the voters wanted in this broken system so this is what the country is now.
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Man I’d love to! Here is a complete list of broadband providers in my city:
- Comcast
- DSL at maximum 1.5 Mbit if there’s no noise in the lines that Verizon stopped maintaining two decades ago, but actually getting a lock at that speed never happens
The whole idea of “shop around” depends upon having a competitive market providing multiple options for similar products. That’s not the case in most of the US.
Meanwhile my kids, who attend a low-funded school in a struggling district, are assigned homework in the form of videos. They can’t not have internet.
The problem isn’t data caps themselves. Metered pricing would be fine… if the monopoly providers weren’t also using rapacious pricing. We pay by the unit for electricity, water, and natural gas. If data were also priced affordably, reasonably, and regulated, metered pricing would work just as well for data.
But as things are, consumers have the worst of all worlds: it’s a service they must have to live above the poverty level, priced in a structure giving providers monopoly power without utility rate regulation like other monopoly utility providers. But broadband is still treated like a luxury add-on rather than a basic requirement of being a full participant in our economy and society.
So yeah. I’d love to shop around. I can’t, and that’s the underlying problem.
The FCC isn’t empowered to fix the problem, so they’re trying to address the symptoms. I wish them luck.
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This is what kills me, the pricing for ISP service is sooooooooo micromanaged that I swear the same two companies would give completely different deals to two houses right next to each other.
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Not a defence of the caps but bandwidth is what ? Free ? Running and building networks is not free. Internet Transit costs real money.
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Praetorian
Ah...you forget that privatization exists for water and electricity. Those $10/month solar roof installers scam customers with misleading rates, because they are not the regulated utility but a 3rd party, leasing the utility grid. And look at water, like American Water Co, recently in the news for a breach. They can raise rates, add fees, and still we have an aging infrastructure of lead pipes that American Water wants their customers to foot the bill on. They even scare customers with bi-monthly letters that they need insurance for the pipe in their home to the main outside. But the meter is inside the home...so how is that legal and not intimidation/FUD?
De-regulation is failure to society, where unregulated CEOs and private-equity firms as well as "unfriendly global partners" have too much control and lobbying influence for their own goals and not the welfare of society.
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The republicans members of the commission object not only to hypothetical new rules, but even releasing a notice of inquiry to survey the market about the <again hypothetical> rules potential effects? WTH?
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It's how America was built! That and guns, infected blankets and broken treaties.
Oh - and stealing more advanced countries IP (UK steam technology anyone?) and illegally using it wholesale.
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I'm pretty sure Ol' Lex wouldn't have to say anything because Superman would have thrown the Republicans into the sun by now. One look at DJT would have made him drop the nice guy routine and go full General Zod on their asses.
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Does anyone know how to set temperature limits on a firewall? I'd really hate to have my network damaged by too-hot packets.
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Just discovered that, here in the semi-rural West country, I can get 2.5GB symmetrical for about £50 ($70?) per month.
Of course, it would make my shiny new (arriving on Friday) OpenWRT router (and the rest of my network, especially my switch) obsolete.
But hey - my home IOT budget is unlimit..
[Muffled voice off camera].
I've just been informed that my IT budget is not unlimited and, in fact, I've spent it for the next 5 years.
Ho hum. One can dream..
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You missed a bit: "In the US".
For amusement, I looked at the list of ISPs that would provide me with 2.6G symmetrical full fibre. Got a list of 35 of them from the CityFibre website..
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Ohh - does that mean their brains are fertiliser? Our coffee grounds go onto the compost heap where, some while later, they help provide really good (albeit coffee-smelling) compost..
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The ISP has a tanker truck full of coffee for each person they're serving that is hot and ready, and will otherwise go to waste. The first large cup is included in the price and refills are 10x the price.
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Thinking about it, my smart outlet is connected to my coffee maker, which I do use to start making coffee from bed most mornings; therefore the internet's purpose is to make coffee.
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