Tag Archives: datacaps
Faster than your router? Verizon doubles FiOS speeds to 300Mbps
Just how is Verizon doubling its highest speeds? Schommer said the key technology upgrade is from a BPON to GPON passive optical network. Customers with a BPON terminal installed at their house will need to be upgraded to a GPON terminal to get the new, higher speeds. Verizon said it will be able to upgrade the vast majority of customers.
via arstechnica.com
And caps?
Study Shoots Holes In AT&T’s Reasons for Throttling
In a blog post, Validas concludes that throttling isn’t being put in place to curb greedy data hogs, but rather to migrate users of traditional unlimited plans to tiered plans. These plans are far easier for AT&T to manage and don’t pose threats to its network.
via pcworld.com
Another data point in the constellation confirming that it’s greed, not consumer protection, that underpins this activity.
Future of Communications Newsletter – December 2011
The latest example is the recent debate around usage-based billing. Klinker doesn???t believe it would do anything to alleviate network congestion, and he wishes ISPs would be a little more innovative. ??? ???You should really do congestion-based billing,??? he suggested.???
Usage caps are not a means of managing network capex and opex, but are a pricing ruse to extract revenue and exclude competing services.
Until these factors are recognised, nothing will encourage ISPs to shift from their current local maxima.
Telstraclear’s Special Deal slows broadband speeds…
Telstraclear customers were warned and they got what they were promised when the internet service provider lifted data traffic caps at the weekend.
Residential customers were offered unmetered access to the web from 6pm Friday until last night. But they were also warned that the extra demand could mean some customers experienced slower than normal connection speeds.
via stuff.co.nz
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Unfortunately up until this pilot, the Internet had been universally and chronically responsive without flaw. A more cynical person than myself might hint that this test was designed to establish good reason for data caps and metering usage.
Do data caps punish the wrong users [AKA customers]?
Data caps, therefore, are a very crude and unfair tool when it comes to targeting potentially disruptive users. The correlation between real-time bandwidth usage and data downloaded over time is weak and the net cast by data caps captures users that cannot possibly be responsible for congestion. Furthermore, many users who are “as guilty” as the ones who are over cap (again, if there is such a thing as a disruptive user) are not captured by that same net.
In conclusion, we state that policies honestly implemented to reduce bandwidth usage during peak hours should be based on better understanding of real usage patterns and should only consider customers??? behavior during these hours; their behavior when the link isn???t loaded cannot possibly impact other users??? experience or increase aggregation costs. Furthermore, data caps as currently implemented may act as deterrents for all users at all times, but can also spur customers to look for fairer offerings in competitive markets.
Setting aside the questionable desirability of punishing any customer, these facts seem to suggest it’s much more about faux scarcity and margin than any of the transparent excuses and demonisation of some customers.
Hamish MacEwan 