• _core@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    7 hours ago

    The pandemic exposed the lie that ISPs need to cap data because of infrastructure limitations. We all went to WFH with no issues on the infrastructure.

  • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    20 hours ago

    You have data caps on your broadband connections in the US? Does your phones have rotary dials too?

    $190 bucks a month for a limitless connection is insane. I’m too cheap to pay 30€ a month for unlimited fibre connection so I use 4G router which gives me around 40Mbps unlimited connection and it costs me 10€ a month.

    • hightrix@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      That seems like some one off or a rural connection.

      I work with a large remote team across the US. Most people on my team have gig internet, some get slower 100 meg internet. Mine is gig, I pay $60/mo and have no data cap.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      ·
      18 hours ago

      It is insane. Even worse is we (taxpayers) gave them money to improve infrastructure and they put it in their pockets instead.

      • Doom@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        ·
        edit-2
        15 hours ago

        And also you know we INVENTED THE INTERNET AND PAID FOR THEIR CABLES.

        What the fuck do they even do? Sell data? Like this should just be a section of the government but everyone is obsessed with the private sector holding shit

    • MacAttak8@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      A lot of plans do. Especially with the major telecom networks like ATT and Verizon.

      Recently had a smaller company come in and install fiber. $85/mo for Gigabit service with no data cap. That’s pretty good compared to what I was paying. ATT only offered 500Mb/s and that was over $110 a month with a data cap, I want to say 800GB.

      Do not get reliable enough cell coverage for one of those mobile routers. But they aren’t any cheaper here since those are owned by the major telecoms.

    • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      16 hours ago

      yeah funny enough, this is more of a recent thing. it’s still spreading at the moment. isps over here just kind of got it in their head that they could make extra money with this one day.

  • Kairos@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    59
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    21 hours ago

    Every place with free coffee refills knows there’s a reasonable upper limit to what one person can consume.

    And if they exceed it, it’s coffee. It’s dirt cheap (just like landline data)

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    196
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 day ago

    None of this would be a problem if the government didn’t sell us out for what we already paid for and allowed these vultures into the system. It should have be national from the start. It costs them about nothing to have data run through those lines. All those caps exist purely to garner profit.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Mostly correct take IMO. I don’t blame ISPs for trying. I blame government (and not necessarily just federal) regulations/regulators for allowing it.

      I grew up in NY. We paid a boatload in taxes to make fiber happen everywhere. IT. NEVER. HAPPENED.

      NY is strongly Democrat. Acting like Republicans are solely the problem is asinine, and nothing stops states from enacting their own laws within the state. If California and NY made it happen. Guess what would basically happen throughout the whole country?

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        12 hours ago

        Yeah point to me where I said this was the fault of the Rubes? Because I didn’t say that. This was a joint captilistic operation to severe untold amounts of wealth from the working class. You paid all them taxes and nothing happened because the ISPs decides to pocket the public funds instead of doing anything and the government let them.

        • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          11 hours ago

          Yeah point to me where I said this was the fault of the Rubes? Because I didn’t say that.

          I didn’t say you did… But the original article DOES try to paint it all on the Republicans. You know…

          FCC Republican opposes regulation of data caps with analogy to coffee refills

          I was taking your point and adapting it specifically to my thoughts on the original article.

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    88
    ·
    1 day ago

    Yeah sure, then why is it that my entire bare metal server leased from OVH costs less than my Internet connection, and is fully unmetered access too.

    I pay for a data rate and I should be able to use the full amount as I please. If we paid for the amount of data then why are we advertising speeds and paying for speeds?

    • xthexder@l.sw0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 hours ago

      If you’re fine with living in a datacenter where the direct connections to Internet backbones are available, then sure. It does cost money to install and maintain fiber/copper lines to individual residences. Of course running a new ethernet cable across an existing building designed for running cables is going to be dirt cheap.

      • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Yes but that isn’t changed by the amount of data used. There is no cost to supply per kb supplied, only a cost to maintain the equipment that governs the speed of the connection.

        Here’s an analog example. If the city you lived in started charging you more for the water to come into your house faster as well as charging you for the amount of water you use. Obviously you should pay for the amount of a finite resource you use but the speed at which you acquired that resource should be limited only by the physics of the water transportation system.

        Data on the other hand, is not a finite resource. There is no limit to the amount of data one can acquire given endless time and energy. So the only way to bill for that becomes the speed at which you acquire the data. You pay for the data speed and that funds the infrastructure to supply that speed indefinitely. End of story. The only reason data caps exist is that they want to charge more money for you to use less bandwidth so they can sell that bandwidth to other people. When what should really happen is, they should invest in higher bandwidth capacity and sell that to their customers to return on that investment.

        Either supply me infinite speed and bill me for the amount of data used or supply me infinite data and bill me for the bandwidth. Not both.

        • xthexder@l.sw0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 hours ago

          I’m not arguing against charging based on bandwidth speeds. You’re right the total data transfered doesn’t really make a difference.

          My point is that even just charging per Mbps, internet will always be cheaper within a data center. Just like water utility service is going to be cheaper next to a freshwater river than in the middle of the desert. There’s millions of dollars in equipment you’re effectively renting to get the internet to your house from the nearest datacenter. Your OVH server in comparison only needs maybe 1 extra network switch installed to get it online, and you’re in a WAY bigger pool of customers to split the cost of service to the building.

          • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 hours ago

            My point was really that data can’t be that exensive even with including transit fees like Cogent and Level3, because I can use TBs of bandwidth every month and OVH doesn’t even bother measuring it.

            If my home ISP gives me a gigabit link, yes I pay for all the cabling and equipment to carry that traffic. But that’s it, I already pay for infrastructure capable of providing me with gigabit connectivity. So why is it that they also want me to pay per the GB?

            In Europe they can provide gigabit connectivity for dirt cheap with no caps, they don’t even bother with tiered speed plans there, how come my $120+/mo Internet in the US isn’t sufficient to cover the bandwidth costs? It’s ridiculous, even StarLink doesn’t have data caps.

            But somehow communities with crappy DSL that can barely do 10 Mbps still have ridiculously low data caps. It’s somehow not a problem for most ISPs in the world, except US ISPs, the supposedly richest and most advanced country in the world.

  • droopy4096@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    funny that nobody argued opposite: all the new services are primarily streaming/hosted and otherwise “not here”. New crop of tech solutions requires crap-ton of bandwidth. So caps prevent those companies from doing ripping off customers in other areas. How un-Republican is that? They are getting in the way of enterprises making a living! So the most Republican thing to do would be to let foxes watch the henhouse. Ask ISPs to regulate themselves so that “everybody”'s (and I mean every enterprise) happy. In other words getting in the way of this proposal is very much just “polid’ticking” trying to undo what dems are doing regardless whether it’s actually a conservative thing to do or not.

      • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 day ago

        Seriously, lol.

        The two republicans mentioned in the article are for sure the two heads of that vomiting earthworm in the pic. The coffee analogy guy being the one vomiting his drivel of lead addled brainrot into an elementary school level take on broadband data caps and general economic theory.