this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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I think you missed (or ignored I suppose) part of his statement that data caps can reduce overall (across multiple subscribers in an area) used simultaneous bandwidth. People say “I can pull 1Gbit/sec, but I know I’ll hit my cap if I do that perpetually, so I’ll just do short bursts here and there when I need it”. This puts people in the mindset not to push their max data speeds all day/month long. Doing so reduces the possibility that everyone in an area (likely using the same data backbone) will ask for all their speed at the same time. This means that the backbone can be smaller and support a higher number of subscribers.
I completely agree on not having much choice though. And thats really what needs to change in many places.
No, I specifically stated that the technology has moved past that, especially in the fiber business. That is not ignoring it, I'm stating he's flat wrong. This isn't coaxial shared bandwidth like the late 1990s/early-mid 2000s. That time has passed. The problem here is a fundamental misunderstanding that the technology no longer requires such data cap/bandwidth tradeoffs (in the wireless business, this may still be necessary due to the congestive nature of wireless signals and how towers handoff/pickup/etc, but it is not necessary in the wired business any more). And if an ISP can't properly support 1Gbps, they shouldn't offer it. Anecdotally, for my use case (I don't saturate my 1Gbps synchronous fiber 100% of the time, but there are times I'm downloading on Steam, many many GBs) my ISP handles it perfectly fine -- and not once has a data cap been introduced.
Outside of the wireless space, data caps are a money grab -- pure and simple. And playing psychological games with consumers, as you have alluded to, in order to get them to not use the bandwidth they pay for is also quite unethical, in my opinion.
I'm curious, where can I find an ISP capable of delivering 100Gbps networking to a residential building for a reasonable price. I'm serious. Has the technolgy truly reached the level that we can guarantee 1Gbps connection to each appartment in a 100 unit building?