Shed a Tear: The Age of Broadband Caps Begins Monday

reply to post by ArMaP


And im on a GOOD deal! Which i had to again shop around for. Than had a huge fight with my old isp over breaking a contract which is still an ongoing fight.
I really hate these companies.

Originally posted by dalan.
reply to post by BigfootNZ

 

Whiners?

No.

We just won't put up with stupidity.

Please tell me you were being funny

Many other countries, including my own, Canada, have had data 'caps' for quite a while now, having worked for over a year for the biggest internet/cell/phone company I can tell you undoubted all of your 'unlimited downloading' providers will be history in the near future. They might be in competition on paper but remember these corporations want money, first, last and in the middle.

They set it up so they can't lose, if you switch to a smaller provider serviced via theirs, you are still paying em, get that thru your heads! An FYI to my american brothers and sisters, now that this is being put into action, please, please, please be reading the back of your monthly bills. Because that is where they will inform you via 30 day notice of your auto migration to new networks, new price plans, etc. They are legally covering their butts while printing your 'notification' on the back pages. Watch and see, this is how it was done in Canada and still is, and I'm sure in many other countries.

The only customers they give any heed to are large multi million dollar accounts of corps. The little guy going to another provider they don't give a crap about because they are profiting way more than they are losing. This isn't going to stop because the american people get ticked or threaten to move providers. They will just buy out the little guys who can't afford the higher costs they are charging them to use their sats/towers etc.

Short of millions cancelling the internet completely as a strike for a month or two, these thugs in suits are not going to take any note at all. Unlimited has a very limited shelf life.

Now, look

This is entirely true, as many UK members will confirm

I have a LIMIT of 1GB a month... it IS a limit, as I don't personally have a phone line aand it cuts off after that! Here it's mobile internet for 10GBP/month. As far as I believe, ALL UK ISP's give a service of 2GB (Low level) / (8GB mid level) or 'unlimited (subject to fair use way below 256GB) (top .level, expensive) internet per month.

The issue in the US is nothing to us...

[url]THIS[/www.abovetopsecret.com...] is next over here....

'Nother Aussie here. The best deal here is 12Gb a month for ~$60 on ADSL1 (No ADSL2 available in my area, 30km from Brisbane). When we go over the quota we are slowed down to dial-up

This isn't even outback territory!

Why did we lose Keven Rudd!?

I am from Aus and about 20months ago i decided enough was enough and i wanted the internet again after not having it for about 2 years, i searched around and found a $299 Bigpond Wireless Home Network Gateway with a $200 rebate deposited right into my account after a waiting period of 9 months, On a half price plan for 24months - $40 for 5gb of data usage because my girlfriend had her mobile contract with telstra.

Around 6 months into the contract my girlfriend decided she wanted to cancel her mobile contract with bigpond ending the cut price of internet it then proceeded to go up to $70 for 3gb of data usage.

After waiting 9 months for my rebate it never came, i rang up numerous times and got denied my rebate over and over again untill one day about 19 months later i was having a bad day and decided i wanted my F*&((*G money i rang up abused the S*&T out of everyone i talked to and they gave me $150 " CREDIT" boy was i pissed, better than nothing though. ( i almost went down the the shop who sold it to me to smack the guy in the face).

Not to mention that i missed out on 2 months of my internet usage at the very beginning because they totalled screwed my account, At the Bigpond store they gave me a modem that should have been posted to me so the modem never worked, I had to wait 2 months for a new modem that worked. And recevied no credit to my account and still was charged for data that i never used.

I was treated like absolute rubbish, i got abused on the phone a couple of times when i was being civil about the situation and they hung up on me.

I WILL NEVER BUY A PRODUCT FROM TELSTRA OR BIGPOND EVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN.

Man! Do I feel like a stealer with my 60 gig per month limit!!!

I've decided, more than 10 years ago, to switch to unlimited downloads because many people were hacked, and their bills got up to 4-6 thousands for a month of use.

Of course, I paid more, but I was still way below what hacked people paid. Sometimes, the contract was over for more than a year and everything remained the same. Then, they would call us, offer us a new plan, and offer 100$ of pay-per-view movies. Or, the same month my big old gigantic screen started to fail, they offered us to renew the contract as it was time, and gave us a 19 inches flat screen for the computer... This year, they are going to send us back 70$ AND offered 80$ of pay-per-view movies for the year... Plus, as it was time to renew both internet and tv, we got more channels on tv, faster internet, and it's gonna cost us 15$ LESS then with the previous contract... per month...

Man, who said living in Canada was lousy?

But I gotta say that my wife asks very annoying questions, always coming back on details, and after an hour, we learn of pretty much all the goods they CAN offer, and she asks for them. They comply 90% of the time!!! And if someone says no to something, call back later, you will end up stumbling on someone who will say yes.

I wonder if it has to do with torrents and sites that use those docs being ruled OK in Canada...

Are you serious? Shed a tear?
Big f'in deal. Harden up I say.

Us here in Australia have had caps on broadband usage since the day they introduced broadband.
It is only now that some providers are starting to offer unlimited plans for broadband.
I'm on a 200gb plan for $49 a month. Once I hit 200gb of downloads, my connection speed is restricted to something like 1mbps or was it 512k?

Originally posted by Azador

Originally posted by dalan.
reply to post by BigfootNZ

 

Whiners?

No.

We just won't put up with stupidity.

Please tell me you were being funny

Guilty.

Mine is a 5gb cap. 15mbps download and 2 upload. It's really easy to go over but they normally don't say anything anyway. Company is penteledata. When I worked for att mobility, I had to deal with peoples bills that were as high as five thousand for a month. I'd tell them they should get unlimited internet because their kids were using the # out of it and they would say Not my kid! While their kid looked down with guilt. It was kinda funny but some parents are just so naive. Of course I helped them fix the problems and got rid of the excess billing. I made money by selling features, not on people going over their allowance.

And you know that once this starts, then next year the cap will be moved and more people will have to pay, and then two months later, let's add more people and lower the cap to take in another 4%, and on and on it goes. Control is tightened in small increments, augmented by big jumps from time to time. Every country needs some major voices to stand up for and advocate for the prime point of the internet: information-is-free.

Originally posted by badw0lf

Originally posted by randomname
wtf, you're complaining. greedy cable and telephone company's in canada invented broadband caps. on top of that if they had 150G packages, they would charge $320 a month going by current rates.

its capped right now at 20G a month for basic internet service, which they bill you $49.

i think the 50G cap package it about $89 a month. and if you read their sales pitch, they make it sound like its the greatest deal on earth for serious internet, media users and professionals.

be thankful everything is still reasonable in america.

Crikey, where the heck is that? I pay $79.95 a month for 200gb (100on 100 off) cap.

20gb for $49 ? Is this like 3G or mobile ? balmy!!

Where is it?

just hack my iphone, you should know my exact longitude and latitude.

This is un-acceptable. ISP's must be aware that the digital media age is quickly approaching, within the next 5 years.

So much for Netflix and Steam, Its nice to download stuff, but screw these bandwith caps. Television and the movie industry is nowhere near suffering! American Idol and the super bowl continue to break viewship records year after year, this is BS that Internet users have to suffer for this.

Why do ISP's want to go backwards instead of forwards? Our Consoles are connected to the internet, Are computers are always on and connected, Our TVs, our Blu-ray Players, soon the Microwave. What can bandwidth caps do anything but hurt the internet as a whole?

Why KILL the very service you provide?

This is like taco bell telling you, that you can only consume 3 tacos a week, if you want more you must pay 500% original cost. Doesnt make business sense at all. Ill take my ass to mcdonalds.

reply to post by againuntodust


Isn't this only in Canada?

reply to post by tristar


ahahahahaha try hacking the nagra 2 encrypted connection i used to hack satellite with a black box then they switched to that encryption and everybody gave up have fun trying lol.

Where I am in Australia, I'm on a 50gb cap at a speed of 1500k for $50 a month, which also counts uploads. When data use goes over, I'm capped to dial-up speed for the rest of the month. It's plain ADSL, can't get ADSL2 in this area, even though it's suburbia of the state's second-largest city.

Australia's internet sucks pretty bad, and our Minister for Broadband is a jerk who wanted to give government the means to censor anything on the internet they wish
[/whinge]

EDIT: The deal I'm on is the best I could really find, and it serves its purpose aside from not being able to seed torrents, so I can't complain too much

reply to post by againuntodust


Thank for bring this to my attention!
I can't believe this, higher gas prices ,Obama Crack down on E-gold Sites and now this is there nothing left

reply to post by againuntodust


Thankfully, I have a smaller, more local service.

Capital S for SERVICE!

no caps here.

Digital service (with fox soccer thankyou!) and 8meg net. TT and L about 140. Could get 30 meg but I have no reason for it. 8 is more than sufficient.

When we first moved here, we had ATT DSL...it sucked. Service? Whats that? The net was down for days at a time almost every month!!!! Laaaaaag? Dont wanna talk about that. Tech support? I talked FAR too often to some goofball in
India
Pakistan
Bum F......BF Egypt!

Bad english. Very Bad.

"Please make sure you computer is turned on"

I"m lookin at it!

Is it turned on?

yes. its turned on.

Ok. Make sure the cable is connected.

yes.....its all connected.

Are you sure?

yes....I'm.....sure......

hated those people! I tried to explain to these folks I'm a hairs breadth from an A+! My oldest build was an old 386!

Without a book and a flow chart, I might as well have been teaching THEM myself!!!!

Originally posted by SerenityGained
Isn't this a good thing though? It's like your mum limiting your TV exposure when a kid.

Maybe time to get outside and enjoy life, rather then using the net?

If the net weren't any fun I'd not be using it.
This is the 21st century, most land around here is private property anyway let me loiter around and get arrested rather than have fun on the net.

Someone mentioned ANONYMOUS earlier. And it hit me. That is the answer. You think ANONYMOUS will let this happen? An internet cap goes against everything they stand for or believe in. Yes I know that they are a loose "organisation" but how many of them are online gamers, download movies, software, and all the other things we can do.

ANONYMOUS, if you haven't already considered this, there MUST be something you can do.