Charged for your overbyte?

[Eagle]

Thoughts on this (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/150451/comcast_sets_monthly_bandwidth_limit_for_customers .html)?

I think 250Gb is a pretty high threshold, but I've read lately where some providers have set or are going to set their limits much lower than that. I've heard figures like 25Gb, 10Gb and the like. In todays file sharing, movie downloading, gaming world those numbers are nothing. Plus once you open that door, where does it end? I can stream movies from Netflix at roughly 4Gb per, so it wouldn't take me long to reach these limits. Fortunately so far my provider (Cox Communications) isn't talking about this, but how long before they do?

In spite of claims that they're just trying to help out the casual user by freeing up bandwidth, I think this is a ploy to come up with "pricing packages tailored to individual use patterns". Read, stick it to us with higher fees. I've been using high speed internet for several years and have never experienced a significant slowdown. I'm skeptical just how many problems are being caused by heavy downloaders. Even though currently I would probably never reach 250 Gb it's the future I worry about. I believe someday all or most of our home entertainment will stream into the home via high speed internet whether it be over existing networks or fiber optics or what have you. We'd be talking about Terra bytes in that case. What do you suppose those packages would cost? Nope, I'm not a fan of this byte-capping or pay per byte system that's looming.

[laconic1]

I'm glad they are finally settling on a hard number, instead of just an ambiguous excessive use threshold that no one knows about. I have never downloaded that much, I think my all time record is about 170 gigabytes, most months I'm around 20-30 gigs. But just knowing the limit would be good.
I agree this will lead to price per use plans, but in reality how is that different from a cell phone plan? I'm a very light cell phone user, generally less than 100 minutes a month, so there is no need for me to get a big fancy plan. My dad uses his cell phone a whole lot more than I do, and pays more accordingly. He is a very light internet user though so he shouldn't pay as much as me, yet he pays about the exact same amount.

[mhdagley]

You would be surprised how fast you would burn through that. Also this seems counter-productive, we are trying to add services to teh interwebs. Things like netflix and the like are becoming more and more man stream. As more people start to download movies the less they will stand for a limit. OTOH at 4 GB a movie thats a lot of flicks, but hd will change that.

[_JP_]

Bandwidth and it's usage has to be paid for by the provider, there simply isn't all-you-eat single price system. It's like with water service. The more water you use out of the pipe, the more you pay.

[Spacegeezer]

It's interesting. I remember getting an email about my bandwidth usage back in '99, complaining about me having downloaded more than 6 gigabytes in a month.

I think the house does 10-20 commonly now.

This is a major concern for internet video, though, as a proper HD movie shouldn't be less than 30 gigs (although most "HD" video on the internet is currently under 7 gbs - small enough to fit on a DVD - and as crappy-looking as you would assume, based on that fact). With a lot of cinema buffs hoping for 4k HD - 4096 x 2160, or almost 9 million pixels, ideally presented at a 32 bit colour depth and 6 or 8 channel lossless audio... the odds are that you'd max out your monthly bandwidth downloading a single movie.

This would be a major setback for what many people see as the movie industries future.


Of course, in 10 years or so when that tech is readily available, a 250 gb a month bandwidth limit may seem as silly as 6 gbs a month seems now :)