U.S. Probes Cable for Limits on Net Video

RainMotorsports

RainMotorsports

Partition Master
Kayden said:
This is a DAMN good thing. Hopefully with this they see they have been abusing their customers which will in turn force them to refund any one who has paid a single cent out of pocket because of caps and never see them again.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...2951166384624.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
Click to expand...

Wait people are paying for going over their caps :eek: Comcast doesn't seem to do that. They will cut you off after warning you a couple times over a period of months of repeated cap overages.

The main thing that eats up my stuff is when i redo a machine. Otherwise even under normal usage of 3 people Watching Youtube, HD Netflix, remote desktop. All the madness it never really hurts it. Its the 150 GB in a day of setting up a machine that does it for me.
 
Kayden

Kayden

Tech Monkey
I know AT&T was doing it when they first started it back in 08, now I'm not sure if it's still in practice, I'm pretty sure it isn't still, I just know it has happened. Either way caps are bad for consumers, it hinders their ability to use competing services and use other services that are going more and more digital like video games.
 
Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
Try being stuck on an old network where the single incumbent telecoms provider won't upgrade it, then says that running the old network is expensive and jack up the prices. Due to limitations of the network too, bandwidth is at a premium, and as time goes on, more people are using it due to no alternative. Yay, 60GB bandwidth caps with no alternative.

Here in the UK, we have an open market of sorts, companies are free to install their own equipment at exchanges to provide competing services... when Openreach lets those companies install equipment and if that exchange supports the upgrades. Openreach is a solely owned subsidiary of BT. I live in that wonderful '10%' of the country that has a single service exchange. But it's a free market, so I get to pick one of 150 flavours of BT. I can pick any one I want, so long as it's BT wholesale. As a result, all the packages from all of the 150 ISPs are the same, the same prices, same packages, they just provide different stepping with prices and total bandwidth, but ultimately, all identical. It's a real open market man! I am free to choose. I can get broadband through BT wholesale... or I don't get broadband at all. It's a great choice! However, recently, an LLU upgrade has been enabled on my exchange which means I can use TalkTalk services... which is Carphone Warehouse... Who owns AOL UK... yeah, I'll leave it at AOL and let you decide which is the devil you know...

In the other '90%' of the country, Sky and Virgin are beginning to step on BT's toes by installing their own hardware, Virgin setting up its own completely independent infrastructure (via cable) too, these companies have started to bundle their own video on demand services too.

The thing is, all these companies offer 'unlimited bandwidth' with a Fair Usage Policy (FUP). What is a FUP? It's a means of throttling your connection when you use too much bandwidth on your unlimited bandwidth connection, the exact amount ranging from 'too much' to 'a lot'. But VoD services from these companies don't count.

Anyone sensing some deja vu?

I have no idea what point i was making, just looking for an excuse to vent... sorry :p.
 
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