ChaosTheory
A fat woman came into the shoe store today...
I don't think I've seen it mentioned here and I'm curious of other people's experiences around the country with this subject. (This got more long winded than I anticipated)
This was only brought to my attention this past year. I was in an apartment complex with one ISP available and they were god-awful. When a second ISP offered service near the end of my lease, I signed up immediately. Solid cable, 80/12 speed, no contract. The kind of service you'd expect at your residence in 2015. The kind I've had at my previous house. I live in the suburbs north of Houston, TX, so it's not like I'm out in the sticks, by the way.
I found out when signing up that Suddenlink implements data caps for their service. "What the fuck? Like a cell phone company does?" Yes. Each tier of broadband service increases your speed but also comes with a data cap for the month. If you go over said data cap, you're charged an overage fee to the effect of $10 for an extra 50gb of data. So if your DC is 250gb and you "consume" 256gb, you get charged an extra $10 for another 50gb chunk of data. I easily went over my 350gb cap every month.
I had never heard of data caps outside of cell phones at that point. My whole life, if you had internet at home, it was unlimited. I do some reading. The excuse is that "less than 1% of users exceed these caps" and "those who use more internet take away from the other customers." But that's horse shit.
Realistic is the fact that more and more people are becoming cord-cutters. They're ditching traditional tv service for options like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Twitch, VOD, etc. They can get nearly all of their entertainment solely from their broadband internet and these services and not have to pay for traditional tv service. It's a dying business model. And that's where data caps come in. It's an attempt to discourage cord-cutting and/or make up some of that revenue. It's obvious and any justification that reps give otherwise is ridiculous. It's price gouging.
Comcast is the first one to pop up when you go to read about it. They started implementing a data cap model (very similar to the one I experienced) in a few "test markets" like Tennessee and wherever the fuck else. If you want unlimited data, it's like $30 on top of your plan. Get that? Overnight, these people's identical service became $30 more expensive. Since then, they've expanded this model to more markets from what I understand.
I didn't mean to get off on a rant like this. But as far as I know Comcast is like top dog in this country. If my ISP is doing it and Comcast is rolling it out, I have to figure lots of other ISP's are doing it as well. Is this becoming the norm? Are any of you guys in areas where this model is affecting you yet? If not, you might look into it. Seems like it's spreading.
TL;DR - I'm curious how many others are experiencing these mobile phone-esque data caps with their home internet services. Seems like some of the big(gest) ISP's are rolling this model out. I figure online gamers are likely to be big data "consumers" like myself and might have thoughts, info, and opinions on it.
This was only brought to my attention this past year. I was in an apartment complex with one ISP available and they were god-awful. When a second ISP offered service near the end of my lease, I signed up immediately. Solid cable, 80/12 speed, no contract. The kind of service you'd expect at your residence in 2015. The kind I've had at my previous house. I live in the suburbs north of Houston, TX, so it's not like I'm out in the sticks, by the way.
I found out when signing up that Suddenlink implements data caps for their service. "What the fuck? Like a cell phone company does?" Yes. Each tier of broadband service increases your speed but also comes with a data cap for the month. If you go over said data cap, you're charged an overage fee to the effect of $10 for an extra 50gb of data. So if your DC is 250gb and you "consume" 256gb, you get charged an extra $10 for another 50gb chunk of data. I easily went over my 350gb cap every month.
I had never heard of data caps outside of cell phones at that point. My whole life, if you had internet at home, it was unlimited. I do some reading. The excuse is that "less than 1% of users exceed these caps" and "those who use more internet take away from the other customers." But that's horse shit.
Realistic is the fact that more and more people are becoming cord-cutters. They're ditching traditional tv service for options like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Twitch, VOD, etc. They can get nearly all of their entertainment solely from their broadband internet and these services and not have to pay for traditional tv service. It's a dying business model. And that's where data caps come in. It's an attempt to discourage cord-cutting and/or make up some of that revenue. It's obvious and any justification that reps give otherwise is ridiculous. It's price gouging.
Comcast is the first one to pop up when you go to read about it. They started implementing a data cap model (very similar to the one I experienced) in a few "test markets" like Tennessee and wherever the fuck else. If you want unlimited data, it's like $30 on top of your plan. Get that? Overnight, these people's identical service became $30 more expensive. Since then, they've expanded this model to more markets from what I understand.
I didn't mean to get off on a rant like this. But as far as I know Comcast is like top dog in this country. If my ISP is doing it and Comcast is rolling it out, I have to figure lots of other ISP's are doing it as well. Is this becoming the norm? Are any of you guys in areas where this model is affecting you yet? If not, you might look into it. Seems like it's spreading.
TL;DR - I'm curious how many others are experiencing these mobile phone-esque data caps with their home internet services. Seems like some of the big(gest) ISP's are rolling this model out. I figure online gamers are likely to be big data "consumers" like myself and might have thoughts, info, and opinions on it.