Now let's get something straight...

[Smith6612]

Well, two years ago Australia used to be one of the only nations that had ISPs that cap. Now, within the last year, many ISPs in the US and a few in the UK have begun capping users or starting trials, or stating plans to do so. One thing I don't understand is other than the urge for companies who are already successful to nickel and dime people, why is it that carriers want to restrict the amount of bandwidth people can use these days and then charge them ludicrous fees for something that costs virtually nothing? For example, a recent case involving Time Warner, states that Time Warner after a user goes over their allowed threshold of bandwidth, will be charged $1 a gigabyte they user. Now, based on information I've found on the internet, it only costs an ISP less than a penny to even transfer a gigabyte throughout their network, or at least a penny or two to another carrier. Now, I'm not trying to put one company on the spot, but as of right now, Verizon (who I have as an ISP) has been the only company in the US that has stated that they are not going to cap or throttle, and they are the same guys building out a fully fiber optic network. Many of the other known companies out there have either already began capping users or started trials, or have plans to do so.

Well, given this day in age where you can drain a gigabyte a data in no time (tell me about it, I'm doing a couple hundred gigabytes a month), what is your opinion on broadband capping? Broadband was designed to be able to run with unlimited use, not to have meters attached to it, and this is one topic that upsets me when I see it in the news.

[ichwar]

totally inane. What reason do they give for doing this?

[lemon-tree]

I get frustrated when there is something I need to download but I know that the file size will eat lots of the monthly bandwidth. The solution is to download at non-peak times, where the bandwidth usage is not counted from the monthly total, but it does mean sitting waiting for it to download late at night.

[alexandgruntz]

New Zealand have had data caps on broadband as long as I can remember. 40GB/month is the biggest one I've come across.

[ichwar]

New Zealand have had data caps on broadband as long as I can remember. 40GB/month is the biggest one I've come across.

wow, that's awful. Here, we get unlimited, $30 a month. I hope that won't change soon.

[frankfriend]

Sadly it is just a profit opportunity, a 'nice little earner'. Of course a penny is not a high cost, but a few million pennies a day mounts up - so the companies want to get as much as they can. You can get an unlimited account - but beware 'fair usage policy' - fair to whom, and who is the judge.
Of course the big carriers are full of insight - like BT which, a few years ago, got out of the mobile phone market - it wasn't going to catch on was it.

[xPlozion]

comcast has been capping people since october i believe. it's 250gb/mo iirc. I've got verizon fios right now, but going back to comcast since my dad got a job there...

[alexandgruntz]

250GB a month? How do you manage to use all of that data? :O

[Mitch]

Luckily i have got cable with unlimited bandwidth. But there are company's who do the same here. (but i thought that was ADSL, not cable).

[Smith6612]

250GB a month? How do you manage to use all of that data? :O

It's really not all that hard. I'm sure that if I were to monitor someone's connection for a month, they'd be surprised on how much they actually use minus internet noise. When it comes down to it, if you're watching TV online, using Hulu/Netflix, watching or uploading HD video and trying out game betas/demos which are 2+GB big, you'll rack up data like crazy. Not to mention I have a large home network.

Hey, last month I did close to 700GB on a DSL Line.