Comments on: Internet Griefing

By: Broken Toys » Internet Griefs Back

Broken Toys » Internet Griefs Back — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:55:32 +0000

[...] with congresscritters wanting to be netizens (or just look like them) scare off Time Warner’s planned bandwidth money grab. For now. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and I stood side by side this afternoon in front of Time Warner [...]

By: Scott Jennings

Scott Jennings — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:51:37 +0000

Not just Rochester, according to Schumer.

By: Delmania

Delmania — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:44:13 +0000

In Rochester, the company has decided to not implement the tiered pricing program due the massive public outcry:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090416/BUSINESS/90416024/1168/RSS

By: toddlorensinclair

toddlorensinclair — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:36:23 +0000

Look … Verizon DSL is $35 a month unlimited … Time Warner $150 unlimited … That’s crazy … Time Warner is $1380 a year more! Every Year!

Yes, I can stream Hulu and Netflix just fine on Verizon’s 3mb DSL thank you.

I don’t think they will get many takers at $150 … and I don’t think they expect to either … the point of their structure is to deter video downloads from the internet in order to preserve their cable television base. By having caps and overages fees to worry about most people will be wary of streaming for fear of receiving a gargantuan bill at the end of the month.

Internet access has become a “conflict of interest” for Time Warner.

By: Olaf

Olaf — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:57:24 +0000

If Time Warner’s really charging an outlandish price, then there’s money to be made by entrepreneurs buying optical carrier lines and redistributing the bandwidth via ethernet. Cable and Telco monopolies have kept players like that out of the market thus far via price, but if the prices go up, then such competitors will appear. Or I should say re-appear. I remember at the dawn of the braodband era there were some apartment complexes here in town that offered just such a service as part of the rent. Crashing prices for regular broadband put an end to that business model.

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:03:42 +0000

(Sorry, that should be “playing the apologist.” Like, say, Boanerges there. I’m impressed that you can count, but a buck a gig is ridiculous, and only the start.)

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:02:14 +0000

It’s a monopoly. That’s all that this is about. It’s not about backbone limitations or the “last mile” or lower users “subsidizing” higher ones.

It’s about natural monopolies and oligopolies that companies have acquire from the natural problem of stringing fibre and copper, and governments that are loathe to treat the like monopolies and oligopolies, because campaign funds tend to come from the guys doing the monopolizing.

Playing the apologist because you think that bandwidth can’t be upgrading won’t help you when you’re paying twenty bucks a gig.

By: TPRJones

TPRJones — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:48:53 +0000

“…bandwidth, eventually, is a finite resource.”

Yes and no. At any given moment in time there are limits, but technology will keep pushing those limits forward. As long as the advancement curve stays ahead of the demand curve, we’ll be fine.

By: Delurm

Delurm — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:46:27 +0000

Where I live we used to have insight. I signed up with insight and had a cable modem with them for around 9 years.

This gave me unlimited internet at (roughly) 7meg down / 1 meg up as measured by a speedtest.

Never had an issue other than normal network problems – those were always fixed promptly and if I had an issue they would credit me for the time I was down – no questions asked.

Then comcast bought them out. Same lines… same equipment – except now I have 700ms+ ping times and I’m lucky to get 1.5 down/256k up.

Same equipment – same lines. Same neighborhood.

You guys are drinking the kool aid if you really think it’s a last mile problem.

The only thing that changed at my local cable company was the upstream link and the router that connects it – guess what…. comcast sucks – they don’t know how to manage their network – and they are blaming users for the problem.

Go figure.

By: Boanerges

Boanerges — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:17:21 +0000

I think everyone is missing the core problem: bandwidth, eventually, is a finite resource. It’s never been a big deal before because there’s never been anything that would cause people to use a glut of bandwidth. Youtube isn’t the culprit, it’s the changing nature of media and software. Steam has changed software on the PC. Carrying PC games in-store has been a losing proposition for years. Now you buy online and download directly. Adobe has done the same thing. Now movies appear headed that way. Streaming and downloads of HD content (with multiple GB of data) are looking to become a norm. As long as people were dealing with downloads of, say, 20MB, having lots of customers was no big deal. But when you have everyone downloading multiple GB at the same time those fantastic speeds slow to a trickle.

Sooner or later there will have to be metered usage. Nothing “unlimited” ever is. And of course everyone prefers unlimited. I remember when I signed up for MCI’s “unlimited long distance” plan. Reading the fine print I found “unlimited” translated to 5000 minutes per month. Not a big deal (that’s a crazy high number to be talking on the phone) but I got worry free LD. And, in the end, Comcast (and their 250-500GB hard limits) gets this.

Time Warner, however, has really missed the mark. Either that or they’re trying to drive their highest usage customers to competitors (not an unreasonable assumption) so there’s more bandwidth to spread (even the 5GB customers will complain loudly if their service is slow). But TW could do better if they ran the 5GB service at $19.95/mo (teaser to compete with DSL) and ran up to, say, 200GB/mo at the $54.95 price point. I can’t say $1/GB is all that bad for a residential service overage. It needs to hurt or you don’t get the desired effect of punishing excessive use. The reason server accounts get their overage for much less is that server overages (where you already get hundreds, if not thousands of GB of transfer) need only hurt if you outrun your allotment by a lot.

@Queso
If we were communists we’d all have a state run dialup (and no competition) with a hard cap of 20 hours/mo.