[hayesk]

Quote

{quote:title=tbailey wrote:}No, it's like the postal worker scanning each piece of mail and seeing if it is stamped standard, priority or express mail, and handling it accordingly. Oh wait, this is what they are doing . . .

{quote}

You pay extra for priority and express mail. I'm not sure if there is a good analogy here.

[fibercut]

Just as the economy is tanking the want to charge more. What economics class did these telco people go to?

[jamus]

How many ISP commercials have you seen where they go overboard saying how easy it is to share files? Download music? Download video? Etc....
On one hand the ISP's want to show off all the fancy things you can do with broadband (to take your money); then on the other hand they do not want to give you the very services they claimed in their own commercials!
Apple, Blizzard, online backups, and any other companies that rely on steady streams of data will be next in the crosshairs.

[MacCheetah3]

Hi
Let's not forget about general OS updates. ~341MB for Mac OS 10.5.2. Heck, most of Apple's update average ~50MB in size. The Microsoft .NET updates are not exactly small, nor are the XP, Vista, or Office service packs.

[Totally_lost]

but roads have almost an infinate capacity of cars ... all parked :(


see http://forums.macwor...tart=0&tstart=0

[jsg14]

Use a VPN like SurfBouncer to encrypt the traffic and prevent them from seeing what you are transmitting. All they will see is a SSL connection.

[eyemahsource]

All these problems stem from a completely flawed economic model.
If the power company charged for voltage instead of kilowatt hours everyone would leave the lights, a/c, heaters on 24/7 because there would be no incentive to conserve and this would result in brownouts and blackouts.
Given this analogy the current situation is perfectly obvious. Before you get upset at this proposition consider that if you quit your high end cable TV contract you have freed up money to spend for additional bandwidth. Consider how many "channels" you don't ever watch. You are paying for these. Why not go a la carte and only pay for exactly what you want to see when you want to see it. A cable DVR saddles you with the chore of browsing through a 1980 interface to predict what you want to watch in advance. I'm sure you would either pay less or watch a lot more of what you want to see when you can actually search for it across the whole internet and then subscribe to it for automatic download.
ISPs could provide plug-ins for browsers that constantly monitor cumulative consumption of packets for the current billing period. This would put the consumer in complete control of their information budget. ISPs already have this real time data or how else could they implement a quantity cap?
A head of a household could implement economy moves by turning off graphics and video and only browsing text sites and only paying a $10 maintenance fee while still getting maximum network speed. When income allows the individual takes off these constraints and gets more content without any need for the administrative overhead of establishing a new contract. So this arrangement allows dynamic change to suit changing circumstances.
The ISPs would still have incentive to build out the network to maintain speed such that it would drive more demand for quantity (i.e. replace "TV"). Do you think that the power company is not motivated to increase capacity such that the voltage does not sag?
This model would be doomsday for spammers as they have no more free ride.
This still leaves sticky issues regarding others pirating your bandwidth via botnets and sticking you with the bill. But this security issue needs to be addressed in any case since it is the central element of denial of service attacks.
People would begin to monitor the impact of their participation in bittorent or FTP schemes and to limit it on their own according to the value to them individually. And this alone would begin to sort out the viability of these more efficient architectures for valid legal activity.
Software could exist to monitor traffic to and from your browser such that you are notified when botnet activity is scavenging your bandwidth without your knowledge and permission and shut it down when you are not actually looking at the screen. This would be real time assurance that you either are or are not being targeted through malware and you can take timely action to correct it. As it stands the consumer only has a "too little too late" indicator of a general operating system slowdown.

[HalanR]

" Before you get upset at this proposition consider that if you quit your high end cable TV contract you have freed up money to spend for additional bandwidth...."

I don't believe that is a valid analogy because with TV, you're actually paying for a certain service. They can quantify what you watch and price accordingly because they, in turn, have to pay the networks for programming. With the internet, it's a service. There is no payment required by ISPs for "programming" on their end.

"This model would be doomsday for spammers as they have no more free ride"

So, the spammers win, don't they? Are we going to let spammers be the cause for our bandwidth to be capped? No thank you, I'll take care of myself here, and put up with spammers in order to have a free Internet. Besides, like always, they'll find a way around it.

I think the point is, we've already paid for these services. ISP/Telco's have been getting these fees upfront for years. Each time they got a rate hike, they promised to increase capacity. They've taken that money and instead, invested it in wireless services that bring a greater profit, and of course, they've used the money to line their own pockets.

Also, there's a deeper motive to eventually control the internet. One day it will be bandwidth capping, the next day it will be bandwidth shaping. If you are on Time-Warner's network, but your kids want to go to Disney.com to play a game, watch a Disney broadcast, etc., TW will be able to prioritize your traffic, putting you in the backseat until their TW customers get their data first.

"The ISPs would still have incentive to build out the network to maintain speed such that it would drive more demand for quantity"

Of course they do, that's why they've been getting all this money for so long. When I travel abroad, I see consumers of other countries paying a fraction of what we pay, for a much higher level of service. That's because they have the insight to replace copper with fiber. Where I live, I'm still force to use copper that is over 50 years old. I've been paying for high-speed DSL for over 12 years. They've not done one thing to better their infrastructure, but yet, they collect my $50 every month.

You have to remember, they are a business. They're going to use any method at all to maximize their profits. They understand the internet is the new cash cow, and they plan to milk it out all they can. You might think, well, give them that and they'll go away... but they won't. They'll continue to look for ways to control and profit from the internet.

[Totally_lost]

A better analogy is the restraunt model:

1) A la carte: You get exactly what you order and pay for. If you want three hamburgers, you pay for three hamburgers. If you want three serloin steaks, you pay for three serloin steaks. When you are done, you can put anything you bought in your pocket and save it for a snack/meal later, or using take out, take a meal home to your family and friends.

2) All you can eat: All that YOU can eat, with restrictions against sharing with others ordering a la carte, or removing food from the establishment when you are done.

Residential internet services are generally one of these two forms, possibily with some restrictions against servers and resale.

Most unlimited internet accounts are of the second form, with clear restricitions about not running servers, no "resale" or giving away bandwidth to your friends, or a clear restriction about personal use with express restrictions about comercial/business use.

The problem with the P2P industry is that they are aware of this, but choose to create a third model:

3) All you can eat and give away: Where there isn't any restriction against driving up to the front door of the restraunt, and loading the entire buffet table away in your truck, every 15 minutes, every day.

and the choose to do so by telling everyone in the restraunt that it's their right to ignore the managements limits on "All You can Eat".