The beginning of the end of unlimited bandwidth?

[Msterbeau]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080...aps-arrive.html

"Time Warner Cable will launch a trial program on Thursday which will impose monthly Internet consumption caps on new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas. Following a two-month grace period, cable users will pay $1 for each additional gigabyte consumed beyond the cap."

[Guest GodfallenPromos]

.....welcome to "Johnny Mnemonic"....

[Goth Brooks]

Get rid of spam and banner ads first, then we'll talk about making me pay for bandwidth.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

You know... all this worry over bandwidth will be moot when the new backbone comes online to the general public.

[Rev.Reverence]

Get rid of spam and banner ads first, then we'll talk about making me pay for bandwidth.

I think I actually understood that^!!!!! YAY...

On another note...do you guys think that consumers will eat this shit, or cancel their subscriptions?

[Msterbeau]

I think I actually understood that^!!!!! YAY...

On another note...do you guys think that consumers will eat this shit, or cancel their subscriptions?

[/quote

]The people it doesn't affect will likely stay onboard. But as the article states, the caps are pretty low for the kinds of things people do now and will do in the future. Personally, I would find an alternative.

Spam needs to go away. Banner ads are financing a lot of content, they can't and shouldn't go away. Just use a Firefox extension like Adblock. :-)

[Hellion]

I read some about it,I also use my cell phone as a modem,i do not use cable.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

You still use the same back bone as everyone else. That backbone has a finite amount of bandwidth.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Will depend on what the final restrictions end up being, if any. Similar to gas prices. Assuming this really does get rolled out across America (and beyond) If it just pinches a little bit people will just suck it up, but if the pinch increases they might just have to actually change their ways. I'm not anticipating it actually effecting your average-joe user all that much though.

I've long felt that content of the internet will scale up with bandwidth. Increase the pipes (aka backbone) and media will just become more advanced and more bandwidth-sucking. Its been that way since the beginning. I anticipate that trend continuing.

I'm guessing the restrictions for the vast majority of users it wont even be an issue. Its probably more targeted at guys like me who are perpetually uploading/downloading virtually all day long. Stuff like banner ads and such isn't really much of a bandwidth issue. Uploading/downloading file sharing, streaming content (a lot) and such are the things that suck down the bandwidth in floods that make normal internet surfing seem insignificant by comparison.

Just surfing the net , posting on a message board, or the occasional stint watching YouTube i don't think is the type of user this is meant to target.

[ttogreh]

I dunno, Troy... I can listen to high quality music and watch high definition streaming video. I can play MMORPGs. I mean... for the average user, there IS a practical limit to the amount of bandwidth used.

Now, for institutions, sure, I can see a bandwidth cap. The average user paying seventy dollars a month? I call shenanigans.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I dunno, Troy... I can listen to high quality music and watch high definition streaming video. I can play MMORPGs. I mean... for the average user, there IS a practical limit to the amount of bandwidth used.

Now, for institutions, sure, I can see a bandwidth cap. The average user paying seventy dollars a month? I call shenanigans.

From what I've read they (that is the ISP industry not necessarily just this one instance here) are more concerned about the torrents that people leave their computers on 24 hours a day sucking down bandwidth regardless if they are at the computer or not or hosting other stuff that gets constantly accessed, etc. That's a far different animal than just being an "avid internet user" lets call it.

Watching 4 hours a day of Internet video isn't the same as having torrents running 24+ hours a day every day at max upload/download speed or having some fairly well-trafficked content being sucked down from a box in your house day in and day out. A single user doing that can suck down like 50X+ more bandwidth than just an "avid net user". That sort of bandwidth-suck right now, is free. I'm surprised it hasn't been curbed sooner honestly. My computer is on nearly 24 hours a day with various forms of file sharing, if everyone used it the way I do , there would have been a crack-down long ago I'd imagine.

Most people, don't use that kind of bandwidth, they really don't. Lucky for us the same people that are most likely to complain are also the most savvy people about such subjects, so they tend to know how to complain better than the silent majority would, hah.

As to the actual final dollar amount, thats a whole different subject depending on where you live, what the competition (if any is offering) etc.