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Limiting the unlimited; forced slowdown of bandwidth hogs creates uncertainty
An interesting article in Sunday's New York Times sheds light on a recent strategy that Internet service providers have been putting into motion.
The article isn't news to UCAN. We've been receiving calls from people that have paid for unlimited data service from their providers but have noticed that the definition of unlimited seems to be evolving.
Let us know by leaving your comments below if you have been caught up in the "platform agnostics," or in plain english, the slow down of internet connection speed, or other caps that your service provider is unfolding.
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Where's my Internet going?
We know there's going to be bandwidth hogs and they should be charged, somehow, for their excessive use of a limited resource. And, yes, it is limited. At the same time, those sites, ah, read that "businesses," that promote extraordinary use of bandwidth to sell their product should likewise be charged. Don't put it all on the end-user that is at the mercy of the webdesigner that takes great care to load multitudes of graphics of high resolution - all of which costs in bandwidth. Also, at what point will the pop-ups be stopped? Before or after being counted against your bandwidth cap? That's another issue the end-user shouldn't be penalized for. Another trap the end user should be penalized for is the web-ring that swallows them whole and only wants to let go after a long trail around the ring. It's that or reboot in some cases. This isn't acceptable either. All the predatory practices that are spammed at long lists and geared to misrepresent their purpose and trick users into obligations, etc. should be ferreted out and penalized instead of the unsuspecting users that are trusting their ISP of performing the filtering they are so good at advertising. So much can be laid at the feet of the providers of websites and online businesses that the thought of charging only on the end-user side is totally unfair.
Another thought to be considered is the overall performance of America's net. Europe, and most of the connect world, laugh at our speeds as we're so far behind. It's just like HDTV, taking forever to get here, and then only because it's been mandated by the government. Is that what it'll take to get providers to upgrade?
There something people are missing...
I think that there is a point that everyone is missing with this plan. Charging by the gigabyte is a terrible ideal for the end user. For example what if I want to download a movie from Netflix or Xbox live, I will peg my monthly limit by downloading couple movies. Now if I want to avoid that from happening I can just use that cable provider pay for play movies service. Shoot I can order as many as I want though their services without the fear of hitting my monthly limit. Personally, I see this move by cable companies to force their customer to use and pay for their services, and to block out any other competition. Instead of investing in their network to make it better; it's easier to nickel and dime the end user to get a better ROI. Also, they are forcing a monopoly of online video entertainment. (Just on a side note...if the cable companies switch to allowing a customer pick which channels they want instead of shoveling tons of useless channels down our throat; the cable companies would free up a lot of bandwidths on their networks.)
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