Brenda Connolly

"I cannot change the laws of physics".

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Gigs

This is why I'm fully in favor of pay-by-the-meg making a comeback. Any time you decouple consumption from price you are going to have serious trouble.


(Edit-well not really a comeback per se, it used to be pay by the minute, but you know)

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"It is the paramount duty of governments and of politicians to secure the wellbeing of the community under the case in the present, and not to run risks overmuch for the future" - JM Keynes

Jellin Pico

In todays world you'd probably wind up paying a lot more than you pay now.

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Dolphins ... The Smug Bastards of the Sea

Gigs

How can you possibly come to that conclusion?

These policies imply that the 99% are subsidizing this 1%. If it were pay-by-use then you'd no longer be subsidizing that 1% of P2P whores.

Here's an example: nearlyfreespeech.net. Metered hosting. It costs me about $2/year to host a couple sites on there that don't get loads of traffic. The domain name registration costs more than the metered hosting.

Any time you have a policy that makes someone responsible for the costs that someone else incurs, you are going to have serious tragedy of the commons problems. The way to fix it is to go to pay-for-use systems.

Jellin Pico

Because I'm a firm believer in the overwhelming greed of corporations and am convinced no company on Earth will do anything for the good of the consumer.

Cristiano

Protip. The protip meme is getting overused!

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"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream" - Vincent Van Gogh

* my blog *

Joodle Fadoodle

Comcast Now Restricts Bandwidth Data Transfer Levels...

Humph.

Aodhan McDunnough

I never asked. How much has Comcast been charging for unlimited and what is the connection speed?

Also would like to hear fee vs Mbps from UK.

I'm spending the equivalent of a bit over $40 a month for a 2Mbps connection (translates to 660GiB/Month if it can run full speed 24/7) that comes with landline. My service is not always at full speed as throttling effects occur (caused by congestion, not traffic shaping). Most of our ISPs here overbook the bandwidth so it kinda balances out with the tradeoff of congestion.

Generally however I'm more than fine and SL is pinched not by my connection but by my rig.

Tyche Shepherd

I'm with one of the largest UK ISPs which is not the cheapest but I've been with them since year dot and I'm loyal (often too loyal for my purse). I'm on their unlimited plan with a speed of 6Mbs (it allows up to 8Mbs but the copper wire to the nearest exchange can't get better than 6Mbs) - It costs me £24.99 ($44 to $45) per month - As I said however there are cheaper options

The unlimited has a fair use policy and they do slow P2P at peak times (not that I use P2P on a regular basis).

I also have a Mobile Broadband a/c I use when travelling by train on business - Thats also £24.99 per month with a 5Gb cap per month . The USB modem works at up to 3.6Mbs but that depends on 3G coverage ,

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Walker

£18 pound a month for a 24Mbps connection, with genuinely unlimited data transfer.

http://bethere.co.uk

They have *never* had to invoke their FUP, despite attracting some of the heaviest downloaders in the country. They don't throttle connections or ports either.

There's no congestion at peak times because the service is only 'relatively' contended. (Ie. You're not competing with all your neighbours for bandwidth.)

Coverage is patchy though because they only have a presence at certain telephone exchanges.

They don't buy their bandwidth from BT Wholesale like AOL, Demon, etc, and they manage their own national network. This seems to allow them to undercut all other British ISPs.

Rebel Television

Comcast sure does aggressively advertise for a service that cannot handle its current bandwith demands. Maybe if they would just stop airing their THE FUTURE IS HERE!!!! crap for one day, they could meet the needs of the everyman AND the torrent freaks.