Bad news for broadband owners

[gekko]

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2002/tc20020612_1108.htm

The basics:

Because file sharing is so popular, broadband companies are now planning to start charging users if they exceed bandwidth limits. So like you get 5GB bandwidth a month, if you exceed it, you pay $$$$$.

This would kill me, badly. I mean, I save all the press images released for Gamecube games, and those can get huge. I mean, around E3 we were talking 10MB images of Mario. Then we got 60MB game trailers. E3 alone we're talking like 2-3GB, easily. Hell, yesterday I downloaded the CS and Half-Life updates, over 200MB right there.

If AT&T begins charging monthly fees if I exceed a certain amount, I'll switch to another company.

[Joeiss]

Yeah... Bell Sympatico and Rogers High Speed Internet are planning on doing this. I don't mind, considering that my hard drive is only 1.99 GB. ;)


Oh.. and does this mean that they max amount of stuff you can have on your computer is 5 GB? Or is that just as much media you can d/l in one month?

[gekko]

Max amount of transfer. So every bit of information sent or recieved through your internet connection. Accessing web pages, every image adds up. So I hope you save a lot of porn soon, or you'll be paying high prices to see all those pics. :D

[Mushlafa]

Originally posted by Joeiss
Yeah... Bell Sympatico and Rogers High Speed Internet are planning on doing this. I don't mind, considering that my hard drive is only 1.99 GB. ;)


Oh.. and does this mean that they max amount of stuff you can have on your computer is 5 GB? Or is that just as much media you can d/l in one month?

Rogers better not do this !! Where did you hear that they would?

[Joeiss]

Originally posted by Mushlafa


Rogers better not do this !! Where did you hear that they would?

Well... On Sympatico's web site, they had a poll to see if this was a good idea or not... Almost 100% of people said no...

And then there was an article about this, and it said that BOTH Bell and Rogers are planning to do this. I know, it sucks.


And Gekko, what do you mean?!?! When I visit a website, the pictures that are on it count as transfers? Or just the ones that I save?

[gekko]

The ones on the page you view. Cause the servers sends you the text for the html file, and all the images. So like me posting :banana: is using your bandwidth. Hehehe.

[Drunk Hobbit]

See, I told you the banana was evil.

[Joeiss]

Originally posted by gekko
The ones on the page you view. Cause the servers sends you the text for the html file, and all the images. So like me posting :banana: is using your bandwidth. Hehehe.

Woah... But pics are like minimal bandwidth, right?

[gekko]

They are not huge files, but bigger than text, and there's tons per page. Plus screenshots will add up, any movies you download add up.

[Bond]

This may or may not be some good news for fellow broad band users:

http://news.com.com/2100-1033-935874.html?tag=fd_top


In a 30-minute speech, Bush praised the technology industry in broad strokes and offered encouraging remarks for companies in the business of high-speed Internet access. "The country must be aggressive with the expansion of broadband," he said, winning a loud round of applause from some 100 technology CEOs and luminaries gathered at the White House for the address.

[Revival]

Bring it on! I got free internet anyways.. and my dad downloads about 10 mb per day.. HP pays for it anyways..

But this sucks for normal users.. :unsure:

[gekko]

10MB per day? I do that easily every hour :)

[Jason1]

If Insight does this damn...well they just better not do it...

yea....

:mad:

[Lord Germano]

Well, I got ADSL, and my max dowloades for the month is one gig. Pathetic really.

I dont even know if you can get a decent hi speed conection here with unlimited dowloads.

[sdtPikachu]

Holy cr@pola, I'm on dialup and MY monthy download (well, that of the flat as a whole) is approximately 700 MB. Not all files you understand, but we get through a heck of a lot of browsing, not to mention lots of software downloads (no, NOT warez!).

When I'm browsing, I often just turn "download new images" off altogether (single click operation) and just get Opera to show the pictures I want to see (right click,"show picture")... I've set opera up to store 4 GB of internet cache and to load it's images form there, so all I need is the HTML for the page, which is seldom more than 20 KB. Speeds up browsing no end on dialup (as well as opera eing bollocks-fast as it is), and the pics cming down don't interupt your downloading bandwidth. Oh yeah... NO BANNER ADS. Even better with the "refuse pop-up windows" option turned on. :D

I guess you could call us "heavy users" of the net, but DSL at 1GB a month...?!

Thankfully the ISP's in the UK don't see DSL in this way yet... hopefully I'll get DSL before they start imposing badwidth restrictions.

If I get rich enough, I'll lease my own 2 Mbit line... :D

Tell me... does this bandwidth include spam? Advertising? If so, your spammers are now not only costing you time, they're costing you money too.

It seems to me the ISP's want DSL users to use it JUST LIKE DIALUP, despite advertising it as "fast downloads with so and so's DSL!", "get music faster, get broadband!" etc etc. With websites getting bigger all the time (larger pictures, streaming content, blah blah), web pages are getting to the point where 1 GB will get you a months browsing of the web for about 4 hours a day. I've come across pages that were over 2 megs in size (such as alot of the stuff submitted to DeviantArt (http://www.deviantart.com)), sorry but no way are you gonna catch me using an ISP that charges me a premium for visiting "too many" sites.

Bastards.

[Lord Germano]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
Bastards.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Its the 27th, and I have used 954MB of the 1000 I get. Looks like no browsing for a week.

[fingersman]

Quick everyone stop posting...save Bandwidth. :sneaky:

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by ThatGuyAgain


Couldn't have said it better myself. Its the 27th, and I have used 954MB of the 1000 I get. Looks like no browsing for a week.

My advice: ask them if they are thinking of doing a "premium" service. Claranet do this with dialup here - you can pay to have a connection that cuts out after 2 hours an dcan only be used a maximum of 16 hours a day, or you can pay them 50% more and get an always-on connection.

Unfortunately Claranet don't serve this area, and we are stuck with sh1tty FreeServe (the UK version of AOL, only without the blizzrd of cr@ppy CD's loaded with sh1tey software).

Words can't express how much I want DSL.

[Sigma]

Originally posted by gekko
10MB per day? I do that easily every hour :) \

sometimes i just go crazy and download like 2-3 gigs a day. Lots of crap to get, lol.

[Lord Germano]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu


My advice: ask them if they are thinking of doing a "premium" service. Claranet do this with dialup here - you can pay to have a connection that cuts out after 2 hours an dcan only be used a maximum of 16 hours a day, or you can pay them 50% more and get an always-on connection.


I have DSL, and they do have "premium" servises. Cable with optus would work out HEAPS cheaper, but we cant get it in our area. *grumble grumble*

Here are the pricing plans for my provider. I have option Number two. Sorry if it didnt format propperly.

Usage Price/ Speed MB cost
Allowance Month After
Allowence
300MB $59.95 256/64 $0.159
1GB $76.95 512/128 $0.149
3GB $94.95 512/128 $0.139
5GB $224.95 1500/256 $0.129
10GB $429.95 1500/256 $0.119

So, as you can see, its pretty costly.

[-apu-]

Originally posted by Sigma
\

sometimes i just go crazy and download like 2-3 gigs a day. Lots of crap to get, lol.

When i have a "gaming moment" i'll just download like 10 gigs in a day full of games that i delete the next day.....wut ever is happening...it better not happen in canada or it'll be more expensive to download games than to actually buy them

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by -apu-
it'll be more expensive to download games than to actually buy them

...isn't that the idea?

ThatGuy - 80 f**king $ for 1 GB per month?!?!? You are kidding...? That's what we brits call "extortionate"

Unlimited DSL in the UK over the same connection (512/128) costs about £30, which is about $50. It used to be that US DSL was cheap as cow cr@p compaed to the DSL over here, but it appears the tables have turned.

(I assume you're talking US$, not Canadian... or whatever...)

Oh well, I guess the days of beta testing software and downloading Linux ISO's are dead then.

Stupid fsck0s.

[Lord Germano]

Nope, Aussie dollers, so you 30 pounds translates to about $90 -$100. I probbaly should have implied that I live in Australia, since it doesnt say it in my location.

[sdtPikachu]

Well, I could just about live with 3 GB a month. But that would mean there'd be no point in building myself a server that I can leave on all day running WinMX and using as a networked gateway.

I need a million quid. Then a T3 will be mine. Bwah ha ha ha hah!

Or alternatively I could buy a drill and see if I can tap into the LinX cable that runs somewhere round here (it's the main cable linking Europe to the US, and has rather fat bandwidth).

That woudl be cool. My downoad speed would be limited by the ability of my harddrive to write fast enough :D