Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic

[Kreij]

Meh ... They can charge whatever they want. If it gets too expensive I'll just use the internet at work and drop my home account.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

This is similar to what they do in my country .. they dont want to improve the road network, so what do they do under the pretence of collecting taxes?

Extreme duties for cars ..the money you spend ona toyota corolla could buy a high end lexus.

 

[Solaris17]

Meh ... They can charge whatever they want. If it gets too expensive I'll just use the internet at work and drop my home account.

if they do that ill jsut go with a smaller company ill go back to TDC they have amazing speeds real cheap but their a small company...they have down time more than most...not alot infact maybe like twice a year only for a couple hourse but sometimes their service is flakey but for 10/10 for $70 hellz ya.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

they certainly have some of the most advanced gadgets out there, but nothing we wouldnt have the in the US if we didnt have all the regulations slowing down companies trying to innovate. one of the coolest things they have in s korea is high quality tv on their GPS devices. also, our mobile phones seem to be generations behind theirs. it comes down to the fact that the US is a large country which makes it expensive to run line every where and upgrade cell towers.

We have very few regulations in place that hold back companies from innovation. Where did you hear that from.

The Japanese have much more regulation than we do.

I agree with the cell towers since they have to buy or rent the land they have the towers on.

Its still nothing compared to the amount of revenue they generate. Those expenses are tax deductable.

 

[candle_86]

some companies might. i find blanket statements and conspiracy theories to be useless without facts.

In this thread alone we've already had complaints and reports of people getting less speed than they pay for... does it occur to you that the network infrastructure is not owned by the ISP, so they CANT do anything about it? the only options is to wait for whoever does own it to upgrade it, or reduce users usage.

that would be AT&T for DSL traffic in this country, they own at last check around 95% of all phone lines, also AT&T isn't cutting traffic, i have there 3mb/s package and i get 2.5 constant all the time amazing what you get when your with the person that own's the phone lines. As for Cable those are owned by the cable company in your area, look for the biggest or oldest possibly the same one, and its there lines actully. As for my DSL im not terribly worried about any of this, we signed a contract with SBC before the buy out from AT&T that stated we have a 3mb service, with unlimited usage for as long as we stay with the company, AT&T honored our contract by law when they bought SBC so i feel quite safe, untill i get bored with DSL they can't cap me, the contract forbids it nor can they charge me for using so much. Any SBC DSL user that got switched to AT&T has this contract. So in short though, DSL is AT&T phonelines most likly.

As for the situation i agree charging users for going over a certain amount will back fire at least in America, I know if they find someway to get around this contract and then say i can have 100gb per month ill be kinda pissed. Ever seen a wow update, or watched the traffic over it, or say steam ect. Online gaming will be affected alot by this and it hurts the compaines associated with it. Blizzard can be affected by this directly actully. How many people might close there accounts because they simply can't afford the bandwith surcharge for it anymore, remember WoW was Blizzards big break, you have to think about more than the net providers think about other things as well. What compaines and bussiness are tied to the internet, what about Direct To Drive, Netflix ect that stream media to PC or for heavens sake's what about the porn industry i can say i easily download 20gb of porn a month, what about that. ITs gonna hurt alot of others, when people get laid off at compaines becuase of declining profit that are net based, they can't pay for net service, so to balance it the ISP raises rates once more, followed by more users leaving the ISP and more bussiness loosing more money, its a cycle is excatly what it is.

If they think i wont disconnect and read a paper/watch TV and go to blockbuster to get what i need and to read there mistaken. Ill start ordering PC Mag again to keep up to date and shop at fry's. This world can survive without the Net, but the ISP can not survive without the user. In Austrilia its your own fault your situation is like it is, what would those ISP's do if you simply disconnected for even a month, just everyone over there didnt use the net for a month and cancled there plans, what message would your ISP get, that its not right, thats what message they would get, if they didn't agree to change stay off for 2 months, 3 heck a year untill they change, its not that hard, man lived for internet for thousands of years, and there is no reason we can't do it agian. So you want to stop this, make it easy disconnect.

 

[Gam'ster]

In Austrilia its your own fault your situation is like it is, what would those ISP's do if you simply disconnected for even a month, just everyone over there didnt use the net for a month and cancled there plans, what message would your ISP get, that its not right, thats what message they would get, if they didn't agree to change stay off for 2 months, 3 heck a year untill they change, its not that hard, man lived for internet for thousands of years, and there is no reason we can't do it agian. So you want to stop this, make it easy disconnect.

If only things were that simple :shadedshu, majority of the time you are locked into a contract and if you wanted too " disconnect for a month or two " that would cost you more than the extra GB's because you would have to pay for the reminder of your contract up front, Unless you have a substantial reason and proof of faults etc.. then you are free to cancel your contract without penalty. Also business's would suffer as the Isp's dont just offer services to " casual " consumer users and that cost would again negate the extra fees. But In the UK ISP's will soon have to sign up to a code of practice that would allow people to chop and change ISP's if they are not getting the speed the ISP is/was advertising...that among others in 1 of many benifits that should come with this, Is there something along those line in AUS, US ?

Gam

 

[Triprift]

There aint any contract with mine Gamy basically i can churn to another isp any time i want without penelty. I have no desire to do so at this stage as my plan and speeds im getting with Adsl2+ are excellent.

 

[Gam'ster]

There aint any contract with mine Gamy basically i can churn to another isp any time i want without penelty. I have no desire to do so at this stage as my plan and speeds im getting with Adsl2+ are excellent.

Hehe is there a code of practice out there that lets you do that ? because that how it is in the uk atm, I had awful trouble with BT and i had to post them my phone bills to prove i had rung the technical help line to complain( to enable me to migrate to another ISP)....even though my calls are with them too. Even though candles idea would give the ISP's something to mull over it would cost me atm.

Gam

 

[Mussels]

There aint any contract with mine Gamy basically i can churn to another isp any time i want without penelty. I have no desire to do so at this stage as my plan and speeds im getting with Adsl2+ are excellent.

to add more to this: most ISP's have a flat fee if you leave before 6 months is up. The average is $99.

A few of the nasty ones (telstra, mainly) insist you pay all remaining months on the plan out first. Telstra really do suck.

edit: this is talking about australia.

 

[HTC]

to add more to this: most ISP's have a flat fee if you leave before 6 months is up. The average is $99.

A few of the nasty ones (telstra, mainly) insist you pay all remaining months on the plan out first. Telstra really do suck.

Here in Portugal, when i signed up, i had to keep my connection for a minimum of 1 year: it was in the contract ...

 

[DaedalusHelios]

Hehe is there a code of practice out there that lets you do that ? because that how it is in the uk atm, I had awful trouble with BT and i had to post them my phone bills to prove i had rung the technical help line to complain( to enable me to migrate to another ISP)....even though my calls are with them too. Even though candles idea would give the ISP's something to mull over it would cost me atm.

Gam

Yeah we don't have contracts yet in NC, USA but I am not sure about the rest of the country.

 

[candle_86]

so don't pay it, they can't really do anything alteast here in the US they can't not sure over there, unless its over 500US here they won't even bother with the courts its not worth court costs. Id break contract, tell them where to shove it, and inform your bank to stop auto payment if thats how you do it. Want to stop it bankrupt them.

 

[Gam'ster]

Yeah we don't have contracts yet in NC, USA but I am not sure about the rest of the country.

I had to google NC didnt know what state that was .
Lets hope it stays that way I cant change for another 5 months.

Gam

 

[candle_86]

we signed a one year contract to not break service with SBC but in return we got a running contract now we can break whenever but untill we do we get a flat rate of 19.99 for a 3mb/s connection with no cap.

 

[Gam'ster]

so don't pay it, they can't really do anything alteast here in the US they can't not sure over there, unless its over 500US here they won't even bother with the courts its not worth court costs. Id break contract, tell them where to shove it, and inform your bank to stop auto payment if thats how you do it. Want to stop it bankrupt them.

I think its £100 here for courts but for anything less it usually debt collecting call centers or call agents... pain in the ass. I know that much because i refused to pay my 3G bill from 3 due to it being shit but that was a few years ago and after a few phone calls of me telling them i'm not paying it went away eventually.

Gam

 

[yogurt_21]

there aint no contracts when you don't pay fopr net.... oops I've said too much. well dang myneigbors are gonna get pissed when they suddeny reach their limit and they hadn't even got on the net yet. lol

 

[Solaris17]

time to DL distros off the neighbors un protected network

 

[Pinchy]

Put it this way, in my area I had/have the following options for internet:

Dial up
Wireless BB
Telstra cable (no, not optus cable).

Now I cant get ADSL2+ in my area and Telstra own all the cable lines (with Optus renting them). I cant even get Optus because their cable "zone" isnt in my area.

Bit of a monopoly?

Now that being said, I am pretty happy on my 8mbit plan (other than the 128k upload speed), where I get 8mbit any time of the day, depending on the server I dl off.

 

[niko084]

The internet infrastructure is in sore need of updating. When you actually stop and think of it, except for backbone connections, most of the internet is made up of 1950s technology (Coaxial cable and telephone wire). So until the infrastructure can be improved we will just be cramming more and more people onto two lane highways when what we need is interstates. Sure we can put up toll gates and lower the speed limit, but that's not going to fix the underlying problem.

Well funny enough companies that own those trunk lines were given hundreds of millions of dollars though the '90s to update those lines so we wouldn't have this problem today, and they pocketed the money and didn't do jack. A lot of them are under investigation currently because of this...

***Still thinks the government should control communications soley, get rid of corporate money greed in something that is this problematic, and getting severely worse fast***

 

[niko084]

time to DL distros off the neighbors un protected network

No doubt it will give a whole new world of laws on accessing networks without permission, even if unprotected. The lawsuits on hacked wifi connections, this should be good. Everyone start locking down by mac address or your screwed by anyone with a clue.

 

[kaneda]

south korea and japan have the fastest available consumer internet. not because their systems of govt are better, but because they are much smaller countries than the US and they are not upgrading from an infrastructure that is 30 years old.

More like Japan focused more on infastructure than military tech.

 

[Polaris573]

More like Japan focused more on infastructure than military tech.

Because they have the United States 7th fleet between them and the rest of the world and a treaty barring them from creating a powerful military.

 

[WhiteLotus]

As soon as one company doesn't charge for over useage, if people had half a brain cell they will just go over to them.

 

[Gam'ster]

Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic
The title reminds me so much of the UK and its fuel and road tax " to gurb road congestion " its all bollocks at the end of the day .

Gam

 

[WhiteLotus]

Because they have the United States 7th fleet between them and the rest of the world and a treaty barring them from creating a powerful military.

That is very true, but look where it has got them? They don't need to create a military, they can just cripple the world with their nano bots that they have made....

But no seriously, signing that treaty is the best thing that has ever happened, the most technologically advance country in the world. Period.